


He Has a Few Complexes

by telm_393



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst and Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-26 17:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3858886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Matt Murdock does not need nice things or non-essential feelings such as happiness, and Foggy Nelson is an unexpected (and vaguely bemused, though mostly skeptical) addition to the ongoing saga of 'Matthew Murdock Walks Alone'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Odd Ducks

**Author's Note:**

> This is legitimately ridiculous and I'm sorry, but everything else I'm writing for this fandom is way more serious and I read this prompt and the glorious thread that came out of it (http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/725.html?thread=398293#cmt398293) and I couldn't stand not playing with the idea and writing a ridiculous Daredevil AU where things are lighter and softer. 
> 
> (Also it's very clear what I like from the two fics I'm writing for this fandom now, haha, but they're different enough that I don't mind.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy notices a few of Matt's...eccentricities.

Matthew Murdock is confident and charming and well-adjusted, except for how he is literally none of those things.

Well, Foggy will admit that he's charming as hell.

But mostly, Matthew Murdock is deeply, deeply weird and screwed up in lots of ways that Foggy didn't even know people could be screwed up.

Here's the deal: Matt seems to have a personal vendetta against being comfortable or even happy. He spends seventy percent of his time studying (honestly, Foggy studies too, but Matt's slavish devotion to law school is worrisome) and the other thirty percent of his time hanging out with Foggy. He appears to make a concentrated effort to not make any other friends, since whenever Foggy tries to introduce him to somebody Matt smiles distantly, shakes their hand, says a few kind words, and then walks off, probably to study more. Nerd.

Foggy's sometimes pretty sure that the only reason Matt became friends with him at all was because there was no way to stop it. They just, like, imprinted on each other. Like ducks.

For the first month of school, Foggy's pretty sure that Matt's so weird about his clothes and food and stuff because he doesn't have any money or because he grew up without money or whatever. Matt's clothes are neat but worn (and boring as fuck, but Foggy's pretty sure that's more blindness than anything), and his cane looks pretty old too, and whenever they go out to get burritos Matt always gets rice and chicken and literally nothing else.

("Don't you like sour cream or guac?" Foggy asks once.

"I love guac," Matt says cheerfully.

"Then why don't you ever get it?"

At this point Matt mumbles something unintelligible and shoves half of his burrito into his mouth, and Foggy doesn't say anything else.)

Then Foggy realizes that Matt does have money, and he does spend money. He just appears to be allergic to spending it on something for himself. His tips are impressive and whenever he buys stuff like coffee for other people he refuses to let them pay him back.

And then Matt's sunglasses break and Foggy catches him trying his very best to put them back together with duct tape when he definitely has enough money to buy replacements. Honestly, that's kind of ridiculous, especially considering that Matt's not exactly going to do a bang-up job of patching up his glasses, which means he won't look all that good, which is exactly the opposite of the look Matt's going for. Foggy's honestly not sure what's gotten into him, if he's in some kind of fugue state where his complex about always looking dignified has been overridden by his complex about living like a monk. 

Yeah, Foggy's not here for this shit, so he finally says, "Dude. Who the fuck told you that you can't have nice things? I mean, is it a Catholic thing?"

Matt looks taken aback. "No," he says. "It's not a Catholic thing." Matt pauses and then says, quickly, "And nobody told me that. I can have nice things, I'm perfectly aware of that, there are just things I don't really need, the glasses are fine, I'm going to get new ones soon, nobody told me that," Matt then mumbles something unintelligible (because apparently in Murdock land that's a great way to get out of uncomfortable conversations) and walks out of the room.

"Dude," Foggy says. "It's one am, where the fuck are you going?"

Matt doesn't come back for the rest of the night. Foggy's pretty sure he went to brood. Matt could win an Olympic gold medal in brooding.

But by now Foggy's one hundred percent sure that the reason Matt doesn't let himself have nice things (even though he spends fifty minutes feeling silk sheets and nice shirts and pants every time they go out shopping) and takes being fiercely independent and self-sacrificing to truly heroic levels has nothing to do with money. It has to do with something else in his past. Or, more accurately, somebody.

It annoys the hell out of Foggy to think that somebody or more than one somebody made Matt feel like he didn't have the right to comfort or happiness or whatever.

So Foggy starts giving Matt toy dinosaurs. No, seriously, that's how it starts. Matt just holds the toy dinosaur like it's a tiny alien, and Foggy explains that it might be nice to have something to fidget with. Fidgeting is great, right?

"I don't fidget," Matt says.

"Yeah, you do," Foggy says unapologetically. "Your sheets are getting destroyed from you picking at them all the time."

Matt puts the dinosaur down on his desk and completely ignores it for days until eventually Foggy does see him lying back on his bed, running his fingers over the ridges of the little dinosaur.

Also, once Matt took a sip of Foggy's mocha and appeared to fall in deep love with it, but no matter what, he always gets his coffee black. Literally no matter what, even though he doesn't like it. Foggy knows he doesn't like it, because Matt makes a face every time he takes the first sip of his drink.

And so Foggy makes the mistake of ordering Matt the wrong coffee twenty times in a row until Matt gives up and stops complaining about it, apparently realizing that there is literally nothing to complain about.

A few weeks after Matt finally gives into the lure of mochas, he buys a new shirt and pants, and sunglasses that are more expensive and sturdy than his last pair.

Foggy would feel smug, but mostly he just kind of feels happy.


	2. Bargaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt reasons with himself.

Matt’s senses are always tuned in, though he makes sure that he meditates and trains at the gym regularly to keep them from overwhelming him. (Sometimes they overwhelm him anyway, sometimes even just the way people’s bones move under their skin sounds like doors screeching, but Matt has ways to deal with that. Being overwhelmed is a failure, and Matt will do everything possible to avoid failure.) Matt listens to heartbeats, always makes sure he knows how many people are in a room, reminds himself of all the ways that he can disarm somebody if they have a knife or a gun, makes sure that people don't get too close, does his best to make sure they're not getting aggressive.

He’s vigilant.

Hypervigilant, the therapist that the nuns sent him to after he ended up back at St. Agnes (after Stick) said. Matt had been pleased when she said that, until he realized that she was saying it like it was a bad thing. On the contrary, hypervigilance is a _great_ thing. It keeps him from getting hurt, and more importantly, it keeps other people from getting hurt.

Besides, that therapist was a quack. She thought that Matt had pathological _everything_ , and that was—and is—patently untrue. Matt’s just very disciplined.

His relationship with Foggy worries him sometimes, though, because friendship is dependence and dependence is weakness, but honestly, he can’t stand the idea of not being around Foggy anymore. He can’t stand the idea of not being Foggy’s friend, of not listening to his breathing and the interesting and funny things he says, (of not being cared about), of not going out with him and having fun, even though fun isn’t necessarily something he should be having either.

Honestly, sometimes Matt gets frustrated at the fact that _everything that makes him feel nice_ makes him weak, and then he feels bad about thinking that and does some push-ups.

Anyway, one friend isn’t too bad, right? It’s like having an ally. Foggy’s on Matt’s side. It’s important to have people on his side. Besides, Foggy is sighted, so that’s also a plus, because maybe Matt can teach him to be vigilant too with the sense that Matt’s missing and he could know even more about his surroundings. Granted, Matt’s sure he observes and notices more than almost all of the sighted people around him because they're just not hypervigilant like him, but _still_.

Foggy’s useful, and Matt can be useful to Foggy too by helping him study and by spending time with him. Foggy seems to like him for whichever reason, so Matt’s doing him a favor by being his friend, and it would be unfair to just _stop_ , and Matt doesn’t want to be unfair. Matt does everything possible to be good, and it wouldn’t be good to abandon somebody.

(Matt tries not to think about the fact that Foggy’s doing him a favor by being his friend too, because Matt’s never felt as…well, as…sharp and untroubled as he does around Foggy. Matt’s never had very many friends. He thinks that the closest he’s ever had to friends were some acquaintances at St. Agnes, some of the nuns, and maybe Stick, except Stick was also a father figure, except Matt doesn’t like thinking of people who weren’t his dad as a father figure. When he thinks too much about relationships, things get complicated. That’s why by now he _prefers_ to be alone.

He really does.

Foggy is an exception. Matt’s allowed one exception.)

There’s a part of Matt that likes being cared for, but he tries very hard to crush that part and hide it in the deepest recesses of his mind. He pushes down unnecessary emotions, because that’s what he’s supposed to do. Strong people don’t have non-essential emotions. He knows this.

Which is why he’s always so shocked when a strong emotion, negative or positive, rises to the surface, like today.

He had an exam. He had an exam and he’d studied for it for hours and he’d done his absolute best (except his best is never good enough, he’s supposed to push past his best and get to a person that’s better than him’s best but he _forgot_ like a total idiot) and he got his grade back and he got an A-.

And everybody knows that an A- in law school is _basically_ an F, and F stands for failure, which is exactly what Matt’s been avoiding all this time. Matt is not a failure, he’s not a disappointment. Or at least, he’s not supposed to be.

So he ends up lying in bed and biting his wrist really hard so that he can focus on the throbbing of it instead of his feelings.

Matt hears the door open and can’t bring himself to care all that much, only enough to make sure that the person who’s come in is Foggy, and it is. Matt can smell his deodorant and his shampoo which is girl’s shampoo but he probably thinks nobody knows that and Matt doesn’t mention it because it smells like strawberries, which is nice.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Foggy asks.

“I’m on my bed,” Matt mumbles around his wrist, making sure the words don’t make any sense. Mumbling works great as a distraction.

“Why are you in bed at four pm? Wait, no, why are you biting yourself?”

Matt doesn’t even try to mumble words this time.

“Dude, stop the biting, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Matt sighs and decides he can stop for now, so he removes his wrist from his mouth, wipes it off, and lets his arm flop onto his bed.

“What’s with the drama?”

“It’s not _drama_ ,” Matt says, offended. He’s not dramatic.

“Okay, then what’s with the moping?”

“I’m not moping,” Matt says. “I don’t mope.”

“…Right. Fine, what’s with the…the…I just made a vague hand gesture in your general direction.”

“I got an A-.”

“ _Seriously?_ ”

Matt winces, ashamed.

“You’re this upset over an A-?”

“It’s a law school F, Foggy.”

“That’s not even a little true, man. An A- is a law school A-. I mean, I get how you can get that idea, but it’s not gonna ruin your future career, Matt.”

Matt stays silent and pretends Foggy’s words aren’t having any kind of effect.

“We should go get coffee. Just relax.”

“I am relaxed!” Matt says defensively.

“You know that when you say it like that you sound, like, the opposite of relaxed, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Matt admits, unable to keep himself from cracking a smile. He sits up.

“He lives!” Foggy says triumphantly, and Matt laughs.

(Matt hasn’t laughed this much in ages. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. He knows he should probably be worried about it, but there’s a secret place inside of himself that just feels _better_.)


	3. Exactly the Wrong Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy gets sick. Matt hovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a couple of mentions of vomiting in this chapter but nothing graphic. This ended up being way more serious than I meant it to be. Sorry.

It’s kind of dim and damp outside, there’s a lot of work to do, and Foggy’s sick with the goddamn stomach flu, which is just so not cool. He’s in law school. It’s never a good time to get sick in law school, but nope, apparently in the grand scheme of things it’s been decided that Foggy’s going to spend like a week of his life groaning pitifully and puking into a trash can.

And of course, because Matt is inappropriately calm whenever something actually bad is happening, he panics like they’re about to be hit by a natural disaster just because Foggy’s sick, which is kind of excessive, not to mention exhausting. He keeps hovering like he and Foggy’s mom have created some kind of telepathic mother hen connection, and he keeps asking if Foggy needs anything and pushing water and Gatorade on him, saying “you have to drink more fluids” and “I think you have a fever, you definitely have a fever” (“oh my God, Matt, stop touching my forehead”) and just. Foggy keeps reminding Matt that he’s not dying, dude, come on, and Matt keeps apparently forgetting that.

Foggy shivers and Matt descends on him like some kind of nearly competent Florence Nightingale, asking, “Are you cold? I can _hear_ your teeth chattering. Do you want my blanket? I’ll bring you my blanket.”

“Dude,” Foggy croaks, “You need your blanket. What are you going to sleep under?”

“I don’t need a blanket, I slept without one for a long time,” Matt says, reassuring in that way he is when he’s saying something that’s not actually reassuring.

“No, Matt,” Foggy says as Matt heads over to his own bed with the clear intention of stripping it of the covers and quite possibly smothering Foggy to death. “Matt, no, seriously. I’ll just get hot again. I prefer the chills.”

Matt frowns. “Maybe that would be good, though. You should sweat out the fever.”

“I’m pretty sure that doesn’t actually work,” Foggy says. “And, like, if it does, it sounds totally miserable. I’d rather die.”

Matt looks panicked for a moment.

“Oh my God, Matt,” Foggy groans. “I’m not going to die! It’s the stomach flu!”

“Right,” Matt says. “It’s fine. You should rest.”

“I’m lying in bed.”

“I’m going to get you food,” Matt says. “You should eat something. White rice works sometimes, but I’m not sure if you can keep solids down. I’m going to get applesauce.” Matt smiles at Foggy, what would be a perfectly winning million dollar grin if it weren’t pained at the edges. “I used to take care of the other kids at St. Agnes when they got sick all the time. I know what to do.”

“Where were the nuns in all of this?”

“There weren’t that many of them and there were lots of kids. If it wasn’t too serious we’d just take care of ourselves or the older kids would do it. Flu season was a bitch.”

Foggy snorts. “Yeah, I bet it was.”

“Not to mention the fact that lots of the kids were sickly, and you had to take care around plenty of them so they wouldn’t get sick, especially the positive kids.”

Foggy furrows his brow. “HIV positive?”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “There were lots of disabled kids in St. Agnes because people weren’t exactly lining up to foster or adopt us.”

“That sucks,” Foggy says, and he figures he should ask some more questions because Matt doesn’t talk about his past all that much, and he hasn’t mentioned St. Agnes very often. He’s been weirdly talkative the past couple of days. Foggy thinks that Matt’s stressed enough to have started running his mouth to fill the silence, especially since Foggy hasn’t felt up to talking as much as he usually does. “So you took care of them?”

“Some of them. Us older kids usually split our responsibilities to the younger kids and spent time with the ones we got along with best.”

“Who’d you get along with best?”

“Mary Sue was a good kid, a fighter. She was always going in and out of foster homes. Um, Hidalgo, Jamal, Shaniqua, Esperanza. I spent a lot of time with them, especially since most of them didn’t have great immune systems.” Matt smiles, something soft and sad. “I stay in contact with them, except for Hidalgo and Mary Sue.”

Foggy has a bad feeling about that, but he asks anyway. “Why not them?”

Matt sighs. “Hidalgo died when he was twelve, pneumonia. Mary Sue…honestly, I don’t know where she is. She ran away and fell off the map completely. She was a really smart kid. Fantastic with computers. I wouldn’t be surprised if she just erased most traces of herself.”

“I’m sorry,” Foggy says.

“Not your fault,” Matt says.

“So why don’t you ever want to go back to St. Agnes? Y’know, to see them?”

Matt clenches his jaw. “St. Agnes was…” He shakes his head. “It’s complicated. I’m going to get applesauce.”

“Yeah,” Foggy murmurs. “Okay.”

Matt disappears for hours, probably brooding. To be fair, he’s got a lot to brood about. Foggy spends most of his time flopping around in his bed, groaning, puking, the works. Eventually Matt does come back when it’s already dark outside and Foggy’s started to try really hard not to worry about his grown-ass best friend, bearing applesauce and bananas (which he cuts into bite-sized pieces with surprising precision) and ibuprofen.

Matt tosses the ibuprofen at Foggy, who doesn’t catch it, so it just ends up bumping off of his forehead. Matt doesn’t seem to notice.

“Should help with the aches and pains and to bring down the fever,” Matt explains.

“Dude, I love you,” Foggy says, because he’s been wishing for ibuprofen all day.

Matt freezes and so does Foggy, because he did not mean to say that. Any person that isn’t Matt would probably just laugh about it, but this is Matt, who analyzes every statement anyone has ever made to him ever and has the tendency to be completely bemused at overt displays of affection, and it’s not that Foggy doesn’t love Matt, it’s just that he didn’t mean to say something that Matt clearly hasn’t heard for a long time and most likely has really complicated feelings about so early in their friendship, and he definitely didn’t mean to say it over ibuprofen.

Matt goes back to the mainstay of his style of communication in situations he finds uncomfortable, the unintelligible mumble, and ends up getting into bed with his day clothes still on and pulling the covers over his head, and apparently Matt Murdock’s massive guilt complex is rubbing off on Foggy, because he feels unfairly bad for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for next chapter, in which Matt gets sick, because I like sickfics.


	4. Happenstance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Matt's turn to get sick, and Foggy's turn to mother hen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated in forever, sorryyyyyyyy.
> 
> Also, I promise that the funny and happy and light-hearted hurt/comfort stuff is going to come back after this chapter, it's just that my fingers typed and angst came out.

Matt is curled up on his side and his alarm clock is telling him it’s six o’ clock in the morning, which means he should be getting up, but just moving his arm to tap his alarm clock has exhausted all of his energy. He bites his lip to keep from groaning, and feels sweat on his skin, clammy and gross. He makes a face to himself because it’s not fair that he’s sweating when he hasn’t even done any exercise. His body keeps alternating between hot and cold—he has to keep himself as still as possible, painfully still, to keep from shivering—and he knows what this means.

He has a fever. He definitely has a fever.

Compared to a lot of the other kids at St. Agnes, Matt was never sickly. His immune system hasn’t been the same since the accident, though. He’s always getting low fevers and sore throats and sometimes it gets really hard to breathe and he can’t feel anything and his mind goes blank and confused with terror (he’s not sure what that's a symptom of, probably some kind of rib injury that never healed right). It’s never actually enough to be classified as actually sick, definitely not sick enough to take the day off. Matt remembers that the first time he told Stick that he was feeling really sick and maybe he shouldn’t train today, Stick laughed in that way he did that made Matt feel like the stupidest person in the world and told him that soldiers don’t let a little tickle in their throat put them out of commission, they fight through it.

So Matt fights through the little illnesses, and the fevers go down and the coughs disappear, except sometimes it’s harder to fight his body because even he knows that he’s actually sick, that if he was normal he’d be spending a few days in bed at least.

He’s not normal, though. He’s a warrior. His body is a weapon and his mind wields it, and Matt’s going to work through this. The fever might be a bit higher than usual, he might be desperately trying to not puke, and the exhaustion might be ready to knock him out any second now, but those are all excuses. Matt doesn’t make excuses, not anymore. He’s stronger than that.

 _If your body isn’t cooperating_ , Stick says in his head, _push it until it does._

There’s no excuse for laziness. No excuse for complacence.

Matt pushes himself out of bed, and the moment he stands up he feels dizzy and falls onto the floor. _Come on, stupid_ , Matt tells his body. _Work with me here._

Matt manages to haul himself to his feet and stumble over to his closet. He rummages around for clothes, any clothes that feel at least vaguely nice, but everything feels abrasive against his skin (everything always feels abrasive against his skin, he can usually ignore it but today it just annoys him) except for a pair of sweatpants that are lined with something soft and an old, worn shirt. He runs his hands over the front of it. It has some kind of fading graphic on it, but Matt has no idea what it is. He pulls the clothes on, runs a comb through his hair, and hopes he looks okay.

Matt sits through his classes and tries to listen to the Professor, but every little thing keeps bothering him. For one, he smells bad because he hasn’t taken a shower and he’s been sweating and he forgot to put on deodorant, but he hopes it's only his heightened sense of smell that can actually notice. Also, there are way too many people chewing gum. Matt’s heard it helps people concentrate, but it's driving him to distraction and the sound of chewing gives him the urge to punch someone, anyone, right in the fucking face, which is probably not okay, now that he thinks about it.

He has an exam next week, and he’s sure that if he was feeling himself he would’ve remembered, but he’s not and he didn’t, and he ends up feeling a surge of anger over it that he gets out through kicking a wall, and then he realizes what he did and mumbles something about tripping and hurries back to his room.

Foggy’s there. His familiar presence, one Matt's memorized, makes his tense muscles relax just a little.

“Hey, buddy,” Foggy says cheerfully, but then Matt hears him turn around in his chair and say, “Jesus, Matt, you look like shit.”

“You,” Matt says imperiously, channeling the nuns at St. Agnes as he makes his way to his bed and finally flops down on it, “should watch your language.”

“Okay, okay,” Foggy says. “You still look like shit.”

“No, I don’t,” Matt says.

“Did you wear sweatpants in public? You never do that.”

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“Matt, you sleep like four hours a night. How is it possible to sleep less and still be conscious?”

“I don’t know, but I do it.”

“You look sick,” Foggy finally says, no longer beating around the bush.

“I’m definitely not sick,” Matt says. “I never get sick.”

He can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, can hear the skip when he lies. He bites his lip to keep from giggling for no reason.

“Go to sleep, Matt.”

“Can’t, I have work to do.”

“I’m pretty sure you caught something from me, dude.”

“I definitely didn’t.”

“Okay, then you caught something more serious.” Foggy walks over to Matt’s bed and Matt can tell he’s reaching towards him from the rustling of his clothes. Matt makes a face but doesn’t move. He feels very floppy right now.

Foggy presses his wrist against Matt’s forehead. “Ugh, gross,” he says. “And you definitely have a fever. I’m gonna get the thermometer.”

“I'm not gonna use a thermometer other people have used before.”

“I disinfected it, Matt.”

“I don’t need a thermometer.”

“You’re the most stubborn asshole in the world,” Foggy mutters under his breath, so quietly that Matt’s sure he wasn’t meant to hear it. “C’mon, open up.”

Matt pointedly presses his lips together even more tightly.

“C’mon, buddy, do it for me, it’ll just take a second,” Foggy says, wheedling, like he’s talking to a sulky little kid.

Matt still has it in him to be mortally offended by that, but he sighs and opens his mouth because the words _do it for me_ send a pang of something unidentifiable to his chest.

He keeps the thermometer in his mouth—it tastes terrible and he wants to spit it out, but he’s pretty sure Foggy would be annoyed—until it beeps and Foggy takes it out. “Fuck,” Foggy says, and his heart’s pounding faster than it should be. “103.4? That’s pretty bad.”

“It’s fine, Foggy,” Matt says reassuringly. “I’ve definitely had higher fevers before and I took care of myself just fine.” He sits up and starts getting out of bed, feeling a bit more rested, but then a hand on his chest pushes lightly and he goes back down. “Hey!”

“Hey nothing,” Foggy says. “You mother henned me over a flu and my fever never got over 101.8. You’re sick, and you’re staying in bed for at least a couple of days.”

“That’s not fair,” Matt says. “I’m fine, and I have things to do.”

“You’re not fine, and you look like you’re going to collapse.”

“I can work through this,” Matt insists. “This is nothing. I could run a marathon.” He probably could, too, if he could stop to throw up a few times and sleep for a full day after.

“Yeah, but you’re not doing that because you’re not totally unreasonable. Even though...you know what else is totally unreasonable? Not resting when you have a fever this high. If you work through this it’ll just get worse.”

“But then it’ll get better.”

“It’ll get better faster this way, though. Come on, Matt, you might end up in the hospital if this gets higher.”

“I’ve had higher fevers and not gone to the hospital,” Matt says, trying to keep the pride out of his voice because he gets the feeling that Foggy might not like that, but he is proud of how much he’s able to work through. He’s worked through training during rainy days or freezing days when every badly healed fracture in his body screamed with pain. This is nothing.

“What the hell was even going on at St. Agnes?” Foggy asks more to himself than anybody else.

“People don’t go to a hospital for fevers, Foggy,” Matt patiently tries to explain.

“Uh, yeah. They do. They go to hospitals for lots of things.”

“Not really. There are ways to take care of it, y’know, without having to do that. You just need a First Aid kit or to just forget about how you feel for a while.”

“I’m…okay, like, I'm not going there right now. You’re staying in bed.”

Matt has the sudden, embarrassing urge to tell Foggy _you’re not my dad_!, but since he’s not an angsty teenager, he just ends up biting out, “Fuck you.”

Foggy’s breath stutters and Matt’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry,” Matt says faintly, because he didn't mean to say that, it just came out. Lack of control. Stupid.

“Matt,” Foggy says, packing so much frustration and hurt into that word that Matt wants to cover his head with his bedcovers, though he valiantly resists the urge.

“Sorry,” Matt says. “I’ll stay in bed?” he says hopefully, doing what Foggy wants so he won’t be mad.

Foggy sighs. “Yeah, good. I’ll get you some Aspirin, okay? We still have a bunch left.”

“Okay,” Matt says, still feeling guilty.

He takes the Aspirin and lets Foggy check his temperature again a few hours later. Foggy sighs in relief when he sees whatever's on the thermometer, and so does Matt, because he knows the news is good. “Okay, sweet, it’s down. 102. No hospital!”

“There was never gonna be a hospital,” Matt mumbles, letting his eyes drift closed. He smells terrible, but he can’t get up the energy to shower. He guesses that maybe he could stay in bed a couple of days. He’ll just study harder to make up for the waste of time. He wants to make Foggy feel better because Foggy's trying to make Matt feel better even though he doesn’t have to, even though Matt doesn’t need it, so Matt'll do this. But only for two days. “Hospitals are for people…” Matt murmurs, but he forgets what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be, and he ends up falling asleep instead of completing it.

He does get better faster when he rests, but there’s always a voice in his head that says, _I expected more of you._

It's the third day Matt's been lying uselessly in bed and he desperately wants to apologize, but there's no one to apologize to, not right now, because Foggy's breath hitches whenever Matt apologizes for what Foggy says is "no reason". There's just a bunch of spaces where people are supposed to be and—and Foggy, solid and warm and kind.

Foggy laughs at something—maybe something on the computer—and Matt feels nauseous.

 _This wasn’t supposed to happen_ , he tells himself. _You didn’t try to make it happen. It just did. So it’s not your fault that you started caring._

_(But it is your fault that you wanted to.)_


	5. In Too Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Foggy go to a party. Or rather, Matt and Foggy make a grave mistake.

Foggy doesn’t go to parties as much as he did when he was younger. He guesses he kind of got all partied out in high school and college, but he still goes to some law school parties because it’s nice to spend time with other people and let go for a while and get drunk off his ass. It just gets really boring really quickly, unless Foggy’s able to score with someone, anyone, in which case it gets really awesome really quickly.

But, yeah, no, Foggy doesn’t go to parties much. He spends most of his free time with Matt or hanging out with his other friends, sans Matt, of course, since Matt appears to be allergic to making friends who aren’t Foggy. Foggy actually gets invited to parties a lot by some friends or acquaintances, though, because he knows a lot of people, and sometimes he goes, but most of the time he doesn’t. If he actually wants to go out, he just bugs Matt into getting some food or going to a bar with him. They never get _really_ drunk, but they do get kind of drunk, and it’s pretty nice, actually, stumbling around campus and laughing and seeing Matt so happy and relaxed.

And Foggy never thought Matt would even dream of wanting to go to a party, but here Matt is, saying that he might want to go to the one he just heard Foggy get invited to, y’know, just to see what it’s like. It’s not a terrible idea, Foggy guesses, because the party looks kind of fun, and Foggy really wants to spend some time with the hot people who might be hanging around, since lately he’s only been spending his time with one hot person, and he could never think of Matt _that way_ , because, just…no. Matt’s his best friend, more of a brother to him than anything, and thinking of Matt like that gets really weird really fast.

Foggy tried.

Foggy tried, and Foggy had to take a scalding shower to banish the horrible idea of having sex with Matt Murdock, his obliviously screwed up dork of a roommate, out of his mind.

Like. Like, wow, no. Foggy never thought he’d have such a horrified reaction to the thought of screwing an attractive person, but Matt Murdock is just full of surprises.

“Are you sure?” Foggy asks. “Won’t it be hard to get around and stuff? It'll be crowded.”  _You hate crowded places_ , Foggy doesn't say.

“Maybe, but…” Matt pauses, looking like he’s warring with himself. “You’re always saying I should try something new.”

“Well, yeah. And hey, it might be a good chance to socialize.”

Matt’s reaction to the phrase ‘it might be a good chance to socialize’—the kind of face someone might make if they were told, say, ‘it might be a good chance to get a root canal’—would be hilarious if it weren’t kind of sad.

“Okay, maybe not socialize. Hook up with some girl, then. There’s a world of hot guys and girls out there, Matty.”

Matt frowns, and Foggy freezes when he realizes that he just came out to Matt, kind of, and also realizes that, holy shit, he never came out to Matt. “Guys?” Matt asks tentatively.

“…Yeah? Plenty of fish in the sea,” Foggy says, laughing nervously. “And I’m an equal opportunity fisherman.”

“…Okay.”

“Hey, maybe you can play wingman for me.”

“For your equal opportunity fishing?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think I’d be a very good wingman,” Matt says.

“Can’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Foggy and Matt get to the party at about ten, after trying to find something to wear and deciding on the same clothes they were wearing during the day because it’s not like they’re going to a museum opening or, like, whatever people dress up for.

Matt immediately looks reluctant when they actually get to the door of the house where the party's being held. “The music’s loud,” he says, practically yelling in Foggy’s ear.

Foggy leans away and says, “I brought you your earplugs.” He digs around in his pocket for them and pushes the little case where they live into Matt’s hand, because it’s not like he forgot about Matt’s crazy sensitive hearing.

Matt inserts them into his ears and mutters, “Thanks.”

“No problem, buddy. Let’s do this.”

They walk into the house and Foggy’s immediately greeted by some of the people he knows, all of them washed in neon lights. Some of them say hi to Matt, too, looking surprised that he’s there. They used to ask Foggy where his other half was when they saw him show up at parties alone until Foggy explained that it wasn’t Matt’s scene.

It’s clearly still not Matt’s scene, because Matt looks confused and out of place in the midst of people dancing and laughing.

Foggy walks Matt around the room because it _is_  pretty crowded until Matt says, “I think I’ll just stay here,” and parks himself against a wall.

“You sure you want to do this?” Foggy asks, because Matt’s starting to look overwhelmed.

Matt nods. “It’s fine,” he says, smiling easily. ( _Fake._ )

“Okay, I’ll get you a beer.” Foggy walks away and then turns on his heel and walks right back to Matt because he can't believe he almost forgot. “Don’t take drinks from anyone but me,” he tells Matt. “Especially not uncovered ones or opened ones or whatever. Just don’t. And stay around other people, don’t go anywhere with someone you don’t know.”

Matt frowns. “Um. Okay?”

Foggy pats his shoulder and says, “Be right back.”

He gets Matt his beer and then goes back to get one for himself.

“Hey, Foggy,” someone says smoothly, and he turns around to face them.

“Hey, Marci,” he says, grinning at her and trying to look cool.

Marci, who looks cool all the time, sees right through him and smirks. “Nice seeing you around. It’s been a while since we saw each other, you know. In a casual situation.”

“Yeah, it has,” Foggy says, thinking about the last casual situation he and Marci were in. (It involved someone’s closet and one of Foggy’s favorite shirts getting torn all to hell.)

“So,” Marci says. “I guess you’re still getting by, huh?”

Foggy rolls his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, with the beard and everything, I thought you’d last a month here, tops.”

“Nice, Marci.”

“Glad you lost the beard. Made you look like a stoner.”

“You don’t hold back." Foggy smirks. "I’m glad you finally got over your bright pink lipstick phase. Didn’t really work for you. Made your lips look like plastic.”

Marci laughs, tossing her head back. For some reason, there's something regal about the motion. “You don’t hold back either, do you?”

“Not really,” Foggy says, shrugging. “What can you do?”

“Anyway, you wanna head somewhere more private?” Marci asks.

“I don’t know if I can,” Foggy says reluctantly, looking over his shoulder at Matt. Marci follows his line of sight.

“You convinced  _him_ to go to a party? You _are_ gonna be a good lawyer.”

“Believe it or not, it was his idea.”

“Huh,” Marci says, looking vaguely amused.

Matt’s talking to somebody. Some girl (hot, of course, that jerk, Foggy doesn't know how he does it). Matt's smiling—his very best fake smile—and saying something, and the girl laughs and touches his shoulder, and Matt’s smile gets a bit faker even as he leans toward her.

“I should probably go check on him,” Foggy says.

“You’re not his keeper.”

“Yeah,” Foggy mutters. “Bye, Marce. Call me.”

“As if,” Marci says. “But...I’ll pick up if you call me first.”

Foggy grins at her and walks over to Matt, who’s nodding at something the girl’s saying and then laughing. “I don’t think that’d be a very good idea,” he says lightly.

“Oh, come on,” the girl says, wheedling.

“Hey,” Foggy cuts in. “How’s it going?”

The girl sends Foggy a death glare and he smiles easily. Matt’s clearly not feeling it tonight, and if Foggy has to act as his anti-wingman, he will.

Matt nods at the girl. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and then he grabs onto Foggy’s elbow and starts dragging him out of the house before tripping over an empty beer bottle and remembering why exactly he grabs onto Foggy’s elbow at all.

Foggy helps Matt maneuver around everybody and head outside.

“That was okay,” Matt says, sounding like he's trying to convince both Foggy and himself of the party's fundamental okayness, “I mean, I don’t s-see the big deal, but, but, but, it was. Definitely.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s head back to the dorms,” Foggy says. “Starting off with a party like that might’ve been a little too much.”

“No, no,” Matt says. “It-it was fine. F-fun.”

The stuttering is making Foggy nervous, and he’s glad when the noise of the party finally fades out. Matt’s breathing is a little fast, and it sounds like he might start hyperventilating, and Foggy’s so not here for that, so he says, “Hey, there’s a bench, let's sit down.”

“Okay,” Matt says.

“Good to take a rest every once in a while,” Foggy says as they sit. "Besides, it's nice out.”

Matt’s white-knuckling his cane, hunched in on himself. “Yeah,” he mutters, and then he’s hyperventilating in earnest.

Foggy rubs his back and says, “Hey, buddy, breathe. C’mon, you’re okay. Here, breathe with me.” Foggy takes in a loud, exaggerated breath, and then another one and another one.

Eventually Matt starts copying him. His first inhale is more of a gasp, but then he seems to calm down and his breathing evens out. It wasn’t even a full-blown panic attack, and Foggy lets out a sigh of relief at that.

“R-rib injury,” Matt says. “It keeps acting up. Makes it, makes it hard to breathe.”

Foggy decides that it’s not time to break the news about anxiety disorders to Matt and says, “…Right. Just keep taking deep breaths, okay? We’re alone. We’re fine.”

Matt takes a few more deep breaths and then turns his face away from Foggy, looking embarrassed. Foggy keeps rubbing his back. “Maybe parties aren’t the best idea," Foggy says. "They’re not that fun anyway.”

“I just…” Matt starts, and then he cuts himself off. “Just…just wanted to have a normal experience. Everyone says that parties are things n-normal people…” Matt shrugs. “Never mind,” he mutters.

“Not everyone likes parties. So you don’t like them, it’s not a big deal. Let’s go get some Chinese food. Y’know, like normal people,” Foggy says, teasing. He stands up and Matt follows, smiling hesitantly as he reaches for Foggy’s outstretched elbow.

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Let’s do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point I'm pretty sure there'll be a chapter where Matt gets an actual root canal. I'm sorry, but I can't pass up Matt Murdock at the dentist.
> 
> Also, just a question: many, many chapters into the future, who here would be interested in Brett/Foggy? Just, y'know. Asking.


	6. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt's very independent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to post this chapter so soon but then I wrote it and I wanted to post it, so...uh...I did.

Matt’s an excellent student. Foggy’s always calling him a nerd for it, but Matt’s going to graduate summa cum laude if it kills him. Matt's been called a nerd for a long time anyway, and Foggy’s much nicer about it than any of the kids at the schools Matt used to go to. Matt’s better at telling when insults are jokes now, at least with Foggy, because most of Foggy’s teasing is good-natured, which is _like_ a joke, and Foggy’s pretty good at not being too cryptic anyway. That’s a relief, because some days Matt is worse at understanding jokes than others, always confused at the way people's heartbeats don't really change when they're not being serious, when they're telling a joke or engaging in good-natured teasing. Sarcasm's easier to understand because it's kind of like lying.

But _anyway_ , Matt’s an excellent student, which is why he’s frustrated when his Torts notes start getting confusing. It’s because the damn Professor always writes everything down on the board and on PowerPoints and then doesn’t post the goddamn PowerPoints on his website, and he doesn’t always say everything that’s on the PowerPoints. Matt tugs at his hair while he listens to his screen reader read out his notes, which aren’t as involved as they should be. And Foggy’s not in this class with Matt, which is a huge setback because then Matt would be able to ask him what the fuck the homework is because that’s another thing the Professor keeps writing on the board and not saying.

Disability Services isn’t great here, but they do have the ability to make PDFs into something, well, screen readable, and they’re the ones who translated his textbooks into type so that his screen reader would be able to pronounce every fourth word incorrectly at him as opposed to having him spend a fortune on Braille textbooks. They said he should get a notetaker, that they could hire someone to do it, but he said no. He said he could take his own notes, because he doesn’t need that much help, not really. He doesn’t need someone to take time out of their day to take notes for him when he can do it if he just tries.

Still.

Matt can’t read the board.

He’s not going to ask Disability Services for a notetaker, though, not when he already said he didn’t need one, and he _doesn’t_ need one. He’ll figure everything out from his textbook, that’s what he’s always done, but sometimes just reading through his notes make him get that strange, tight feeling in his chest. Taking those notes is more difficult than it should be, and the truth is that law school isn’t like college. The textbooks are more complicated, the classes are more complicated, and he has to have the screen reader repeat parts of the texts over and over and sometimes he can’t remember if the Professor talked about them.

Matt doesn’t want to fall behind. Falling behind means failure, and failure is unacceptable. This is something he’s always known. When school starts to make him restless, he just goes to the gym and exercises until he’s lightheaded and then goes back to his room and collapses on his bed and goes over all of the things he’s learned this week over and over in his head.

It’s fine. He just has to try really hard.

( _Do your best, and then do better_.)

He doesn’t need help, he really doesn’t. He uses his cane, sure, but that’s because he’s used to it and it _is_ admittedly easier to get around with, necessary most of the time, even. There aren’t many other things he _needs_ , though. He holds onto Foggy’s elbow, but that’s more closeness than anything. He doesn’t need to do that, so it’s not help, not really, even if he’s less likely to trip over a curb or cross at the wrong place on the street when Foggy’s there to tell him there are stairs or guide him around crowded places.

The thing is that help is for people who, well. Who need help. Matt can get out of police grade handcuffs in under forty seconds, okay, and zip ties in even less time. He practiced that for a long time with Stick when he was a kid. He still has scars from where the handcuffs cut into him, so, yeah. He’s pretty self-sufficient.

(He only started holding onto Foggy’s elbow because one time when he was drunk he kept tripping even with his cane, so he grabbed onto Foggy’s elbow and said, regally, “You’re my guide, now!” and he never got out of the habit.)

Matt’s disabled, sure, he’s never going to say he isn’t, but he doesn’t need the same kind of help other disabled people deserve. He’s gotten used to all the things he can’t do, and so he can do everything by himself. He has his gifts, and his gifts should make up for the fact that he can’t see.

(That’s what Stick said, at least.)

Matt has an exam next week and he’s listening to his screen reader go over the same paragraph again because he doesn’t really get this topic, he knows the Professor explained it but he was paying more attention to the person chewing gum next to him like an _idiot_ and it’s not in his notes.

Foggy’s coming down the hall, Matt can hear him and smell him, he’s going to be in the room soon.

Matt’s screen reader keeps insisting that one of the words in the paragraph is pronounced something like “ashvelud”, and Matt has his suspicions about that. It could be a name, but he's not sure and he keeps getting distracted and forgetting the context.

(Matt’s screen reader voice is named Hannah and they get along, mostly, but sometimes she's a bitch.)

“Hey, Matt, whatcha doing?” Foggy asks, walking into the room.

“Studying,” Matt says.

“Um, I mean, with your…hand.”

Matt’s head is aching and it takes him a while to realize that it’s because he’s been thumping the side of it methodically with his fist. He lowers his hand. “Nothing, my ears just kept popping.”

“…Okay. Why’re you so stressed?”

“I’m not stressed, Foggy,” Matt snaps. “What makes you think I’m stressed?”

“Um, ‘cause you’re always stressed?”

“Whatever, Foggy. It’s not like you’re not stressed too. With the way you kept groaning the other day when you were studying, I thought you were dying.”

“…No, seriously, what’s up?”

“My screen reader keeps mispronouncing one word. I think.”

“I can read it to you if you want.”

“I don’t need that,” Matt says too quickly. “I can figure it out from the context.”

“O…kay?”

Matt sighs and slows down his screen reader’s reading speed.

“Hey, you’re in my Torts class, right?” Foggy asks.

“We take the same one,” Matt says, giving up on Hannah and taking his earbuds out of his ears. “But we’re not in the same class.”

“Well, yeah, duh, but can I borrow your notes? I kind of fell asleep last class.”

“Why?”

“I was tired.”

Matt rolls his eyes and pulls up his Torts notes, depositing his laptop on Foggy’s bed. “Knock yourself out.”

Foggy’s quiet for a while until his breath starts hitching like he really wants to say something, and then, finally, after half an hour of tension, he says, “Matt, these notes…”

“What?”

“There just aren’t that many of them. And they’re kind of…disjointed.”

Matt clears his throat uncomfortably. “Well, sorry my notes aren’t good enough for you,” he says, trying to joke, copying the inflection Foggy uses when he says things light-heartedly.

“Seriously, though. Don’t you have someone to take notes for you?”

“Oh, no, I don’t need that.”

“Wait, dude, you don’t have a notetaker? Professors write stuff on the board and don't say shit all the time, why the hell don’t you have a notetaker?”

Matt shrugs. “I don’t really need one. If my notes aren’t great, I just read my textbook.”

“Professors say stuff that’s not in the textbook.”

“I have a very good memory.”

“…Right, but seriously, life would be a lot easier for you if you’d just tell Disability Services you need a notetaker.”

“I don’t need a notetaker. I don’t need help.”

“There’s nothing wrong with needing help. I ask you for help on my work all the time.”

“Yes, but that’s different.”

“How?”

“It…” Matt starts, and then he cuts himself off before he says, _It just is_.

Matt doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to lean on other people. He doesn’t need a helping hand when he’s down, because he's always gotten right back up by himself.

(Matt knows seven ways to incapacitate a grown man with his hands bound. He _really_  can take care of himself. He’s taken care of himself _and_ other people for years. He does just fine dealing with things on his own. He doesn’t need help, he needs to protect people. He needs to protect _Foggy_ , because the world is full of threats and Foggy doesn’t _understand_.)

“And remember those times you paid for my food because I forgot my wallet?” Foggy asks.

“…Yes,” Matt says, not entirely sure where this is going.

“And when you tried your hand at wingmanning and were super weird about it but it totally worked?”

“I wasn’t super weird about it.”

“You told her, ‘my friend Foggy’s really good at sex’ and then you smiled and walked away and left me there.”

“And you guys hooked up!”

“Yeah, we did! And you took care of me when I was sick, and you’re really good at First Aid for a blind dude, actually, like, really good at it for anyone, not just a blind dude, and you let me borrow your clothes when I forget to do laundry.”

“Yeah.”

“And when girls and guys don’t like me you always say they’re missing out.”

“Men are pigs,” Matt says solemnly and automatically.

Foggy barks out a laugh. “And you’re always helping the other people on our floor with their homework, and that’s actually pretty amazing, considering what you’re working with.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m getting at this: if you help other people, why are you so against helping yourself?”

Matt lets out a mumble of surprise and turns his face away from Foggy’s voice, not knowing what to say. “I have to do things myself,” he says.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to make things nine million times harder for yourself! Get a notetaker, Matt. Come on. Come on. Come _on_.”

“I’ve got to go my own way.”

“Matt, I’m pretty sure you just accidentally quoted _High School Musical 2_. Get a notetaker.”

“Where did you even watch _High School Musical 2_?”

“Never mind, dude. Come on. You deserve accommodations.”

Matt doesn’t mean to flinch at the word _deserve_ , he really doesn’t, but he does anyway for no reason he can think of.

“Look, I know how much you care about your grades. It’s been two months, and this shit is already really hard. It’s just gonna get harder, and getting better notes could help you do better, and you're already doing really well. I mean, I know you think you have to do everything yourself, but this isn’t being independent. This is just being really fucking stubborn and digging yourself into a hole. You don’t have to make things this hard for yourself when it’s _already_ really hard.”

Matt frowns. “You’re gonna be a good lawyer.”

Foggy laughs. “Yes! Let’s go to Disability Services, mi amigo.”

Matt presses his lips together. Thinks a while. It’s true that he could be an even better student than he already is, and if Foggy goes with him he could help Matt actually talk to the Disability Services people, because usually after five seconds of talking about his ‘needs’ with a person who keeps talking to him like he’s five, Matt wants to jump out of the window. But it might be easier if Foggy's there.

( _Do your best. Then do better._

This’ll help him do better.)

Matt takes a deep breath and says, “Si. Vamonos.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a lot of self-control to not stick an exclamation point at the end of this chapter's title.
> 
> Also, it really hasn't been very long since Foggy and Matt met, okay, just go with it. Give your poor dyscalculic author, who has a very limited understanding of how time works, a break. And remember that Matt and Foggy imprinted on each other. Like ducks.
> 
> P.S. I'm operating under the assumption that the Professors in Columbia would kick up a fuss if Matt tried to tape the lectures without signing a waiver and that getting an in-person notetaker would be easier for everyone.
> 
> P.P.S. Also I'm pretty sure that High School Musical 2 is conceivably something Foggy could have watched pre-law school since it came out in 2007. If it's not...please take pity on your poor dyscalculic author again and pretend that High School Musical 2 came out earlier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


	7. A Good Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy and Matt take a late night walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure, undiluted fluff. 
> 
> (This is in preparation for the next chapter, which is not pure, undiluted fluff, and will be up either tonight or tomorrow.)
> 
> Also I've officially decided that Foggy's got like a couple of years on Matt. He took some gap years.

Foggy’s got a crick in his neck, he’s pretty sure he ate, like, seven cupcakes today (they were there and he couldn’t help himself) as opposed to actual nutritious food, and it’s ten o’ clock at night, which means he’s been either in class or studying literally all day. He’s in law school, so it’s not like it’s an uncommon occurrence, but seriously, studying all day and ignoring life in general is more Matt’s scene, not Foggy’s.

He’s pretty sure he’s got everything down for tomorrow’s test, so he decides that this is the moment to stop and smell the nonexistent roses.

Foggy groans and stretches, back aching, and he looks out the window and decides that maybe he should enjoy nature for a while. He’s been cooped up all day. His mother would not approve.

Foggy stands up and grabs his jacket off of the floor. He’s pretty sure it’s not too cold outside—the nights haven’t been cold lately, it’s pretty nice—but it’s definitely light jacket weather.

Just as Foggy’s shrugging on his jacket, Matt walks into the room, looking exhausted. He’s been looking like that more and more, lately.

“Hey, buddy,” Foggy says. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“You haven’t?”

“I don’t know, maybe for like two minutes in the morning. Where’ve you been?”

“The library,” Matt says.

Foggy chuckles. “Of course you were. Hey, I’m gonna take a walk for a while, okay? So don’t wait up.”

Matt frowns. “You’re taking a walk alone at this time of night?”

“…Yes.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

Foggy rolls his eyes. “Why not, Matthew?”

“It’s dangerous to go out alone when it’s dark, you could get hurt. It is dark, right?”

“Yeah, it’s dark, but Matt, you’ve definitely been out this late. Alone. You literally just walked back here from the library.”

“The library’s not very far away.”

“It’s not that close, either.”

“I’m well-equipped to defend myself, Foggy,” Matt says. “Anyway, I’m used to the dark.”

“Okay, dude. Seriously, I’ll be fine. I won’t even go too far, I’ll just be on campus.”

“There’s danger everywhere, Foggy.”

Matt’s genuinely worried, and Foggy’s really not going to try and argue with Matt’s idea that there is indeed danger lurking behind every corner, because Matt kind of has a point. Walking alone at night isn’t not dangerous, but honestly, Foggy doesn’t think he’d be much of a target.

“Okay, then you come with me,” Foggy says.

“What?”

“Yeah, we can protect each other, come on.”

Matt’s lips twist upwards into a reluctant smile, and he says, “Okay.”

Matt holds onto Foggy’s elbow as they walk outside and end up wandering around campus, between buildings and trees. It’s peaceful. Maybe Foggy should go on walks more often. He really could use the exercise, since the other day he was late for class and made the mistake of running and it ended up looking like he was dying or something. A hot girl asked him if he was okay. It wasn’t a proud moment. “This place is beautiful,” Foggy says.

“Yeah,” Matt agrees. “Especially at night. It’s not as crowded. Not as loud.”

“Yeah.”

“Not as many people,” Matt says, and he pauses when his sleeve brushes against the trunk of a tree. He runs his fingers over the bark and smiles a little before starting to walk again.

Matt seems a lot calmer than usual, and Foggy feels a lot calmer than usual—“always going a million miles a minute, my Franklin,” his mother always says, laughing—because it’s all just kind of okay. No worries. No studying.

Foggy should be sleeping, because he’s supposed to be a _responsible adult_ , but he’s not really into the idea of going back to the dorms yet, not when it's so nice out.

“Where are we going?” Matt asks after a while.

“What do you think, dude? We’re walking aimlessly.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“There’s no point! It’s aimless walking! It’s just fun.”

“Fun,” Matt repeats, sounding vaguely uncomfortable.

“Yeah, fun, ever heard of it? I like to think we have it sometimes.”

Matt laughs uncomfortably and shrugs. “Sure.”

Foggy rolls his eyes and finally notices that they’re totally off-campus when they end up at an intersection. A motorcycle screams down the street with no muffler, so loud that even Foggy flinches, and Matt jumps, briefly looking so genuinely terrified that Foggy’s afraid that his, ahem, rib injury is going to start acting up.

Foggy takes an exaggeratedly loud deep breath, not mentioning it but hoping that Matt will get the hint, and Matt copies him without missing a beat, and then he’s fine, potential crisis averted.

“Motorcycles, man,” Foggy says. “I’d never go on one without a muffler, they get so fucking loud, even without hearing like yours.”

“You ride motorcycles?” Matt asks.

“For your information, Matt, I’m from a family with a proud history of involvement in motorcycle gangs.”

“…Really?” Matt asks suspiciously.

Foggy laughs. “No! But I do know how to ride one. I don’t know, I learned because Speedy—y’know, my baby brother—wanted to learn and I wanted to make sure he didn’t die.”

“Oh.”

“Someday we’ll get you some good earplugs and you can go for a ride with me.”

Matt chuckles. “Okay.”

“Cross now,” Foggy says as the light changes, and they do, and then they keep walking.

“Are we still doing the aimless thing?” Matt asks after they’re both silent for a while.

“Yep.” Foggy peers into a park and says, “Oooh, never mind, we’re not aimless anymore, Matt. Left.”

Matt doesn’t turn left. Instead he asks, “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to a park to sit down for a while and be among nature.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They finally do turn left, and they end up in the park. “Oh, man, I remember these places from when I was a kid,” Foggy says. “There weren’t any in Hell’s Kitchen so my mom always had to take us down here.”

“What?” Matt pauses as gravel crunches under his shoe. “Foggy, are we on a playground?”

“Yep!”

“Why are we on a playground?”

“Nostalgia!”

“I never went to playgrounds when I was a kid. There’s nothing nostalgic about this.”

“C’mon, didn’t you ever go on swings?”

“Well, yes, but…that wasn’t a playground so much as a…space out back where kids played sometimes. In St. Agnes. I’d go out at night and play there when everyone else was gone.”

Foggy doesn’t ask any of the several questions that comment raises. “Well, then there is nostalgia involved here. Didn’t you like swings? I bet you liked swings, back and forth is your kind of motion.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Matt says flatly.

“We’re going on the swings,” Foggy says, walking towards the swing set with purpose.

“Foggy! What?” Matt stops cold and Foggy stumbles. “I’m not going to go on swings. We are grown-ass men.”

“Yes, we’re grown-ass men, so we can go on swings and be grown-ass men about it! There’s no one here, Matt. It’s just us, we can do whatever we want and it’s not weird.”

“It’s pretty weird,” Matt says, but he starts moving again, and Foggy, after some stumbling, manages to get a half-step in front of Matt—the miracle half-step—and they get to the swing set without tripping and falling and dying.

Foggy sits heavily on one of the swings and grabs the other one, shaking it so that the chains connecting the swing to the set jingle enough for Matt to find the swing and sit down. Matt looks vaguely uncomfortable.

Foggy moves back and forth a bit, not really actively swinging, and eventually Matt starts doing the same. Matt smiles, small and warm, and Foggy doesn’t know why, but he feels like he’s been told a secret even though Matt hasn’t said a word.

Matt starts actively swinging after a while, not too much and not too high, but enough to clearly be swinging. Foggy follows suit, looking over at Matt, who’s tilting his head back and grinning up at the night sky.

Matt’s bright laughter cuts through the night and Foggy’s own laugh chases after it, dancing through the cool, sharp air.


	8. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt protects Foggy. The only problem is that the immediate threat he’s protecting him from isn’t actually there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's pretty heavy, and Matt's PTSD is really triggered in this chapter. If you want more information, go to the end notes for a basic summary of what happens.

Matt may or may not have slept in the last three days. He’s not admitting to anything, he’s just pointing out that it's a possible fact that he's not getting a significant amount of rest. He hasn’t been having very good dreams, is the thing.

A lot of the time people ask him if he even dreams, and just… _yes_. Yes, he does dream. He’s not sure if sighted people have never used their other four senses in a dream or what, he's pretty sure he did when he was sighted. Besides, he does still see in dreams sometimes, just not as much as he used to. Colors here and there. Maybe a face, or the outline of a body.

Matt’s had nightmares since he was a little kid, and he’s had trouble sleeping ever since he was a little kid too. It’s because his sleep schedule was so weird, waiting for his dad to get home in case he needed patching up, falling asleep at the kitchen table. And then when he went blind it got worse, because it turns out that light and dark are pretty helpful for knowing when to go to sleep and staying asleep. Anyway. Matt hasn’t slept in three days. It’s fine, though. Definitely. He’s okay. He’s done great on way less sleep before. He and Stick practiced getting him used to sleep deprivation, which is why he doesn’t fall asleep as much during the day anymore.

He’s at one hundred percent operating capacity except, according to Foggy, when he says that he sounds like a dorky robot. So he doesn’t say it. Instead, he says that he’s okay, because he’s okay.

Just because he hasn’t slept for a while doesn’t mean anything. It’s not that he doesn’t want to sleep. It’s not that he dreads the nightmares and being useless for four hours a night, sometimes more. He hasn’t found the time to sleep, and he’s not tired.

He keeps saying that to Foggy, who keeps not believing him. It’s frustrating, really. Foggy’s always saying that Matt needs more sleep, but he doesn’t understand that Matt’s different from him. Matt’s body is different. It can be sharpened and ready to go even when he hasn’t had as many of the things that everyone says he needs to survive. Admittedly, things are a little confused today, mostly because he feels like everything’s blurring together, all the sounds, smells, and tastes of the world, and he does feel like he’d like to lie down, but he’s not actually tired, he’s just a little dizzy.

He’ll work through it, he decides as he and Foggy head out to get lunch, going off-campus for today because Foggy wanted to get burritos, and stepping onto a sidewalk. Matt can smell car exhaust, a lot of car exhaust. He wrinkles his nose.

“It smells like a chop shop out here,” he complains.

Foggy's laughs, and he’s still laughing when it happens. They're walking, and there's a gunshot.

Matt's mind freezes and then there’s one thought, carved into the ice that his brain has become: _protect_. "Gun!” he yells, all business, and he pushes Foggy down with one fluid motion, shielding Foggy’s body with his own.

He listens for more gunshots, tries to figure out who it could have been, where the sound came from. He thinks back to the moment he heard the gunshot. It came from next to a car. 

Matt can disarm a gunman in under a minute, he knows it, but he doesn't know where the shot came from, it's ringing in his ears— 

_ (Dad? Daddy!) _

"What the hell, Matt?" Foggy says. "Matt, get off!"

Matt's mind starts thawing out, melting like it's going to wash away everything he's ever thought, and he realizes that it wasn't a gun. There was no gun.

He should've known. He should've known, a gunshot is a distinctive sound and he can generally even tell what kind of gun is being fired just by the sound of the shots, he and Stick practiced, and he should be able to tell one sound from another but his mind's so scrambled and Foggy's pushing him off and sitting up with a groan and gently prompting Matt to sit up too.

A car backfiring. Matt made a fool of himself over a fucking car backfiring.

There's murmuring around him that might as well be screaming, low voices crashing in his ears, and Matt's chest is tight and it's hard to breathe and his ribs—his ribs are pushing in on his lungs again, not letting them expand—“Matt, breathe. Breathe with me," Foggy's saying.

But Matt's at the kitchen table and he's been waiting, waiting for his dad because his dad should be home soon and Matt can't wait to ask about the fight with Creel, and then there’s a gunshot, just one, loud, echoing in his head, and he's heard a lot of gunshots in his life and they've gotten louder and he can hear the people who shoot and get shot at now, and he hears someone let out a choked-off groan and fall to the ground _(thump)_ , and Matt feels with an ice cold certainty that he knows who got shot tonight.

Dad.

Daddy. 

Matt's rocking back and forth and humming to himself, hands over his ears, desperately trying to block out the noise of the world, the people around him— _dude, is he okay?—yeah, yeah, he's fine, just give him space—_

His humming kind of sounds like the ocean in his ears, or how he thinks the ocean might sound. He's never been.

"Matt! Matt, buddy," Foggy's saying, and his heartbeat's panicked, erratic, and he sounds unhappy. Distressed, that's what the tone of voice is, distressed. "Please talk to me, fuck, just show me you know I'm here,  _please_."

Someone says, _Does he need an ambulance?_

Matt's breath hitches again, and it's painful, it aches, his ribs feel broken, his lungs feel punctured—did he puncture a lung when he went down? That doesn't make sense, he's done that so many times without any more than a scrape—at the mention of an ambulance and shakes his head vigorously. 

"We don't need a fucking ambulance!" Foggy says. "Jesus, give him space! I've got this!"

Foggy’s lying. He's definitely lying. His heartbeat should be hard to read since it’s already fast, but Matt can tell so easily from how it skips.

"Matt!" Foggy says, and he puts his hands on Matt's shoulders and squeezes hard, so hard that Matt almost feels present. "Matt, you've gotta breathe. Okay? You're okay, you're gonna be okay."

Matt laughs a little hysterically because Foggy keeps lying. "Foggy," he gasps. "Foggy, that—that—that—”

"It's okay, Matt. Take a deep breath. Okay, come on, here, put your hand on my chest."

"W-w-w-"

"I dunno,” Foggy says as he guides Matt's hand to his chest. “I…maybe it’ll help you follow my breathing, I don’t _know_ , I’m making this up as I go along. C'mon, breathe with me." Foggy takes in a deep, exaggerated breath, and Matt can feel Foggy's chest puffing out as he breathes in deep, as his lungs expand. "C'mon," Foggy says again after he exhales. "Help me out here, breathe with me."

The next time Foggy breathes in, Matt sucks in a quick, painful, gasping breath. 

"Good," Foggy says, and then he breathes in again.

Matt does too, over and over again until his painful gasps become deeper breaths. He's exhausted, his entire body hurts, and the idea of actually going back to the dorms makes him want to flop onto the sidewalk and never move again.

There are still people whispering about him, still asking Foggy (always Foggy) if he's okay as Foggy helps him to his feet ("c'mon, Matty, can't stay on the sidewalk forever").

Foggy says, "He had a panic attack, seriously, give him room, what, you've never freaked out before? Seriously, it's fine, I know what's going on, these things run in my family, let us through."

Foggy presses Matt's cane into Matt's hand and Matt grabs Foggy's elbow, probably too hard. 

He's confused and upset and he doesn't know what came over him, Stick would be so pissed if he knew Matt made a mistake as stupid as confusing a gunshot with a car backfiring, and his ribs still ache, are still making it hard to breathe. 

At least he has Foggy to guide him, though.

At least he has Foggy.

When they get back to the dorms more than one person on the floor asks Matt if he's okay, and then asks Foggy when Matt doesn't answer because words are not his friends right now. "He's fine," Foggy lies cheerfully. "Just tired."

(“Woah, Nelson, what the hell happened to your face?”

“Shhh, Jackie," Foggy hisses. "Nothing, nothing.”

His face?)

They finally get to their room, away from the minefield of human beings and their need to interact with each other, and Matt kicks at the side of his bed before collapsing onto it.

He's so tired. His body's completely spent.

"Wait, hey, nope, as much as I want you to finally sleep like a human, you're gonna regret falling asleep in your jacket and shoes, sit up."

Matt groans in protest before finally giving into Foggy's prodding and sitting up and letting Foggy help him take off his jacket. Foggy pulls off his shoes and pulls back the covers. "Matt," he says tentatively as Matt curls up under the covers. "Maybe when you wake up we should talk about getting some professional help for—”

"No fucking way," Matt says too sharply, reaching out and groping around and finally finding and squeezing Foggy's shoulder, sick fear settling in his stomach. "Shrinks are quacks, they—they—they just—they just split your skull open and dig around in there and they never fucking shut up and they—they—n-no shrinks, Foggy, no shrinks!"

"Okay, okay," Foggy says, sighing. "No shrinks, not yet."

"Never," Matt insists.

"Go to sleep, Matty. You're okay, you're safe."

"Safe," Matt repeats as he drifts off. He pats Foggy's shoulder before his hand drops to the bed. "It's okay, Foggy. You're safe too."

"I know, buddy. I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matt hears a car backfiring and thinks it's a gunshot, so he pushes Foggy down. He then has a flashback to the day his dad died and a panic attack. Foggy does his best to help.


	9. Kitty Got Claws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some jerk is bothering Foggy. Matt unleashes hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK, FRIENDS. I'LL NEVER LEAVE YOU FOR SUCH A LONG TIME AGAIN! (I might, you know how my update schedule is.) 
> 
> In my defense, I got into a new fandom. Mad Max is pretty great. But I've gotten to the point where I can balance all of my fandoms again, yay!
> 
> Heads up, this chapter deals a lot with bullying. Hopefully it's more cathartic than anything, though. And there's a slur in this chapter! The homophobic f-slur, to be exact. Also there's body-shaming. There's a happy ending, though!

Here’s the thing: Foggy was a chubby, cheerful kid with a nickname like ‘Foggy’, a family who didn’t have the money to get him cool clothes or toys, and an enthusiastic appreciation for school. Then, in high school, he never really tried to hide that he was bisexual.

Of _course_ he got bullied.

A lot.

Foggy’s always been pretty good at letting things go, though, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Sometimes it did get hard, with entire groups of people constantly making fun of him, running into him on purpose in the halls, laughing at him and talking about him behind his back in a way that made it really clear that they wanted him to overhear them talking “behind his back” and saying things to him directly that would stick for years. Tripping him, pushing him, pulling his chair back when he tried to sit down so that he’d end up on the floor.

It was childish, really.

The problem with it was that Foggy was a child, so sometimes it really hurt. Everyone had been telling him since he was six years old that college would be better, he’d find more people like him, make more friends. Foggy was friendly with everyone who wasn’t a bully. He even got invited to parties and he had people to sit with at lunch. Still, he never had good friends or anything, no one who would stand up for him when people were being jerks. He didn’t blame them, there were perfectly good reasons that nobody but family would stand up for him. They didn’t want to be a target.

But that meant that Foggy did spend a lot of time telling his parents he didn’t mind that people made fun of him and telling his older sisters that it wasn’t a big deal and they didn’t have to defend him and crying in his room.

He’d been really happy when he got to college, because it was true: it was better, and the bullying stopped. There were still people who made fun of him every once in a while, but they weren’t that bad.

And now that he’s in grad school, he’s got a best friend for the first time in his life and he’s friends with so many different people and it’s actually _great_.

And then some guy named Chance Evans decides that he misses his old high school bully days and chooses Foggy, who’s in a couple of his classes, as a target.

Of course.

It doesn’t really hurt him—and no, he’s not being all…all _Matt_ about it, it actually doesn’t really hurt him—except Foggy’s _so annoyed_ that he’s in law school and he’s still the chosen verbal punching bag of some asshole. He’s in his twenties. He should not have to deal with this shit.

Chance calls him fat and occasionally spits a couple of slurs at him and makes fun of his name and says he’ll never make it as a lawyer because he’s so soft.

Please.

Like he hasn’t wiped the floor with that guy in a mock trial. Like that’s not the actual reason that Chance settled on him to be an absolute raging dick to.

Foggy just doesn’t want to engage, because that’s a terrible idea when it comes to bullies, especially since he can't be intimidating to save his life. Ignoring bullies really is the way to go when fighting back is inadvisable, because eventually they either go away or fade into the background so much that they don’t matter at all. Besides, it’s a big campus, so Chance doesn’t even manage to be a horrible human being at Foggy as much as he’d probably like to.

It’s still annoying, and sometimes Foggy lies awake at night and thinks about the things people said to him when he was younger. Fuck, there are things kids said in _kindergarten_ that he still thinks about sometimes, which is stupid. Beyond stupid. Foggy’s a pretty unflappable guy, but sometimes Chance says something to him and he’s reminded of being sixteen and finally snapping because of the fifteen millionth time someone called him fat in one day and hiding in the bathroom, skipping lunch on purpose and sobbing his heart out, trying not to be loud about it. He remembers the way that he skipped the rest of his classes that week until the school called his parents and he’d pretended that he had just suddenly decided to be a rebel. He remembers feeling vaguely offended when his parents didn’t believe that he’d skipped school because he wanted to. He remembers finally spilling about the bullying to his parents, about how he'd been downplaying how bad it was, and begging them not to talk to the Principal because that always made it worse.

They hadn’t talked to the Principal, but they’d still been pissed about what was going on, and after that Foggy hadn’t skipped classes anymore.

 _You’re a gross, annoying nerd, and no one wants to be your friend,_ is one thing that Foggy remembers being told in third grade. That one really stuck with him.

But mostly he’s able to let these things go. He knows most of the things people said to him when he was younger weren’t true, they were just being jerks. Probably had rough home lives or something.

Foggy’s really good at forgiving people when they do shit to him. He doesn’t have the constitution to hold grudges, he’s pretty sure his heart would give out.

He’ll definitely hold grudges on behalf of someone else, though, and he knows Matt does too. People can say what they want to Matt, they can do what they want to Matt and he'll be totally oblivious to how shitty it is, but if it’s done to someone else…well. Once, Matt overheard some guy say he didn’t like Foggy, and to this day he seems to hold him up as a pinnacle of evil or something.

(“How could someone not like you?” Matt says. “It’s incomprehensible. It’s incorrect!”

“Uh,” Foggy says. “Thanks, buddy.”

“That guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Matt had said, patting Foggy's arm comfortingly like it was Foggy who was upset about this offhand thing someone had said to one of their friends.)

So Foggy shouldn’t be all that surprised when he’s walking with Matt one day, just kind of wandering around campus, taking a walk because they haven’t really been out of the dorm for anything but class in like a week, and Chance says, “Are you with your boyfriend, fag?” and Matt immediately goes completely still, making Foggy stumble because Matt’s holding onto his elbow, now kind of painfully.

“What?” Chance asks. “Going to get some lunch?” He snorts. “You could really skip a few meals, man, just saying. No one’s gonna take you seriously looking like that.”

He shoulder checks Foggy, icing on the cake, making him stumble slightly, and then Matt’s moved, like, ninja fast, and he sticks out his cane so that it hits Chance's shins, and Chance trips and falls to the ground with absolutely zero grace.

Foggy hides his sudden bark of laughter behind a cough, and now he’s assuming that Matt’s going to act bewildered and “aw, shucks, I didn’t mean to do that”, because that’s generally how these things work, but then again, Matt’s not really the kind of guy who goes with what people usually do.

So he flicks out his cane and taps Chance against the side and then leans over him, almost facing him, putting his cane on Chance’s stomach as the guy tries to get up.

“Stay down,” Matt growls, and his voice has gone down, like, two octaves, and it’s actually really intimidating, and Foggy’s not sure if he should stop this before it starts or what, because Matt has anger issues and Foggy doesn't really want him to get kicked out of school for this.

Chance swears at Matt and doesn’t listen, still tries to get up, and Matt jabs his cane into Chance’s stomach, hard.

Foggy should probably stop this, but honestly, this is pretty great.

“Listen closely,” Matt says, still in that weird, growly voice that should sound kind of comical but is actually threatening as _fuck_. “Foggy’s a better person and a better student than you’ll ever be, and I don’t _appreciate_ you saying things like that to anyone, let alone him. So let me make this clear: I ever find out you’ve been bothering him again, I’ll _destroy_ you.”

“What the fuck?” Chance sputters, and now there’s a group of people congregating around them, watching the whole debacle with almost as much fascination as Foggy.

Foggy is, he’s got to say, getting a lot of vindictive enjoyment out of this, pretending that Chance is an amalgam of everyone who ever bullied him.

“Fuck you, man,” Chance says. “You’re bluffing. You’re _blind_.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Matt says dryly. “And yeah, maybe I’m bluffing. Maybe I’m not. No, you know what, I’ll spell it out for you: I’m not. What can a blind guy do to you? Huh. Do you want to find out? I’ll spell that out for you, too: you really don’t.”

Matt takes the cane from Chance’s stomach and says, “Bother him again and it’s your funeral. Get out.”

And Chance actually does, because seriously, that was actually really fucking scary, and Foggy can’t believe that someone actually did this for him. It’s _Matt_ , yeah, but still.

Foggy blinks rapidly because now is not the time to get emotional, seriously, and claps Matt on the shoulder. “That was immensely satisfying,” he says, because if he says anything else, like “thanks”, he’ll probably start crying like they’re on a soap opera and then Matt will freak out because he still doesn’t understand that sometimes people cry when they’re not sad.

Matt smirks. “My pleasure.”

Foggy wishes he could go back in time and tell a smaller him, “Dude, don’t worry. It’s all worth it. Just wait until law school, you won’t believe who you’re gonna meet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, as a person who was bullied a lot as a child (I was a little Autistic, learning disabled, mentally ill girl, do the math, a thing that I incidentally could not do. Elementary school was a dark time), this chapter really was pretty cathartic for me.
> 
> Also, a poll: which kind of obscure or just small fandoms do you wish had more fic? They don't even have to be an actual fandom, just...you wish you could occasionally just read some fic in it that you haven't already read.
> 
> I personally really wish that The Pacific (that miniseries is the *bomb*, guys) and Night At The Museum (don't you dare judge me, those movies are gold) had more fic.


	10. Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Matt has trouble getting out words, which is...frustrating.

Matt’s good at talking. Kind of. In a way.

He’s good at arguing. He’s good at public speaking. If he thinks enough about what he says, he can always get words out. He plans out entire conversations in his head because he has to get them right. He’s excellent at small talk, he can exchange pleasantries with the best of them, he can turn on the charm. When people start talking about things that he’s not entirely sure how to talk about, he generally just politely excuses himself or even just _leaves_ and it’s fine, people don’t even notice that he’s gone.

Sometimes he stumbles over his words, though, particularly when he’s surprised or agitated. It’s aggravating, really, because Matt knows how to speak smoothly, every word following the one before exactly like it’s supposed to.

He remembers that when he was younger, just after losing his dad, he would trip over his words in a way he never had before.

Before, he’d occasionally say the same word more than once or stumble on a sound when he got excited, but after his dad died, sometimes he could barely even say anything because the words would come out jumbled and it was painfully difficult to enunciate, especially with his senses seeming to get more and more heightened by the day. He’d get distracted, confused, in the middle of a conversation because of the air conditioning suddenly making some sort of clanking sound, and he’d trail off or end up repeating the same word seven times until he finally just gave up and smiled and shrugged and laughed it off.

It happens less, now. Matt’s trained himself to know when he’s about to trip over his words, has trained himself to use his words carefully and plan out what he’s going to say. He’s always done that anyway, with the stock phrases that he’s locked in his head, there to be put to good use. They help because they don't just keep him from tripping over his words, they keep him from tripping up during social situations. Sometimes Matt feels like a secret agent or something when he interacts with other people, constantly observing and having so many of the things he says planned out right down to the pitch, the way his voice rises and falls.

_Hello. How are you?_

_The weather’s nice today._

_I’d give anything to see the sky one more time._

_Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea._

_I’m fine._

_I fell._

_I tripped taking out the trash._

_I clipped the doorway while I was leaving my room, it was stupid._

_I’m clumsy sometimes._

_I like the sound of your voice._

And on and on, he has the easy, everyday conversations prepared like opening or closing statements. He doesn’t have to do it so often with Foggy, which is actually nice. He can talk without planning things out as much, and he can talk about things he wants to talk about without having to worry about saying the wrong thing. Banter is easy with Foggy, easy and spontaneous, and Matt isn’t big on spontaneity, but it’s comfortable.

The problem is that he still gets surprised sometimes, or agitated. When he feels unpleasant feelings that he doesn’t even try to name—it’s not necessary to name them, they’re superfluous—crashing around inside of him, he’ll occasionally mess up and start repeating things again, which is beyond frustrating because it’s such a clear sign of weakness. Stick hated it when Matt tripped over his words to the point where Matt just didn’t talk much when he was around Stick. Silence is golden, anyway. Children should be seen and not heard. There’s a reason those are cliches. They’re true.

Matt hates himself every single time he repeats himself when he’s excited or angry or agitated in any way. He doesn’t always do it and he doesn’t understand why his body betrays him sometimes, why every once in a while he can’t get out a single word at all.

Foggy doesn’t mention it, which Matt’s grateful for, because he’s sure he’s done the stupid verbal stumbling thing in front of Foggy more times than he’s done it in front of anyone else. Not even that much, he tries to reassure himself. He’s never done that thing where he can’t get out any words at all.

Of course, now that he's thought that, it happens.

The worst part is that it’s not even anything isolated that causes his usually _very solid_ verbal abilities to crumble. It’s not someone yelling at him, it’s not someone making him angry, it’s not anything that would make the reaction even vaguely appropriate. Not that that reaction is ever appropriate, but still, at least it would be explicable if there was any concrete reason that Matt ends up quietly freaking out, which he’s _not supposed to do_.

Instead, it’s just a day in general that ends up getting to him. It's his senses bothering him, ramping up every tiny sound or smell or taste or touch into something sickening even though he tries to just focus on the professors, on his own breathing. It's talking a lot in class. (He says the right things, though, has all the right answers. That’s good. His dad would be proud of that.) It's having some conversations with other people on his floor which aren’t even unpleasant, they’re just longer than usual.

All of it agitates him, makes him grind his teeth until his jaw hurts. He’s _overwhelmed_ , he thinks with disgust as he walks into his dorm room (and there’s Foggy’s familiar presence but it doesn’t take Matt from the edge). He shouldn’t be overwhelmed, he was taught to not get overwhelmed, he was taught to deal with all sorts of stimuli. Stick used to put headphones on him and make him listen to metal grinding and engines and gunshots until he wanted to throw up, and he got used to it.

If he’s used to that sort of negative stimuli, he shouldn’t be bothered by a single damn thing, his senses shouldn’t randomly heighten, he shouldn’t get overwhelmed just by being around people, he shouldn’t forget to talk just because he’s talked a lot. For Heaven’s sake, it’s not like he has a talking _quota_.

But when he sits on the bed he’s vibrating with pent up energy and his ribs are pressing into his lungs and he drives his fist against his head hard, just to clear things up, just so his brain can finally unscramble.

“Matt!” Foggy says. “What the hell?”

“What?” Matt mutters, grinding out the word, clutching a fistful of his hair with one hand. His head is kind of aching, now. It makes things a little better, and it's a little easier to get himself under control because he’s got a better point of focus, the throbbing of his head. He’d kind of forgotten that Foggy was here, though, and that Foggy doesn’t particularly like it when Matt does things like this.

“Why’d you do that?”

Matt shrugs, though it feels more like a twitch than anything, grinding his teeth together. He rubs his fist hard against his head until it makes his scalp burn, until there might be a bruise (but it’s covered by his hair, so it’s no big deal).

“Hey, come on, Matt, talk to me. What’s up?”

Matt sucks in a shallow breath and says, “N-no-noth-nothing, nothing, nothing.” He snaps his mouth shut with a click of his teeth and stops himself from hitting his head again for Foggy’s sake. Fuck this, fuck words, fuck how absolutely useless he is, how weak.

Stick tried so hard to teach him how not to be weak, but Matt still ended up like this. No wonder Stick left.

“Matt, I’m, uh, gonna sit on your bed. Is that cool?”

Matt shrugs again. “S-sure, sure.”

Foggy sits on Matt’s bed, and the warmth that comes from him is calming. His heartbeat's a little nervous, but his lungs are expanding exactly as they should be. Good. Foggy’s safe. Foggy would be completely fine if he didn’t have Matt to worry about. Guilt crashes over Matt at that thought, because he doesn’t need to be worried about, and he feels he should communicate that to Foggy. “Y-you, you…don’t…you don’t h-have to, have to worry ab-about me.”

“…Okay,” Foggy says. “Right, yeah. Um, you can still tell me what’s wrong, though? While I don’t worry?”

Matt waves his free hand, the one that’s not in a fist that’s pushed up against his head, vaguely. “ _Nothing_ ,” he says, getting the word out without a hitch. Victory. “Just, just, just.”

Never mind.

“Did something happen?”

Matt takes a deep breath. “No.”

“So you’re totally fine, as usual.”

Matt has the feeling Foggy’s being sarcastic, and he does _not_ appreciate that. He really is usually fine. He’s even fine _right now_ , in some way that he can't explain. He’s fine because being anything other than that makes him want to kick a hole in the wall.

Matt really shouldn’t kick a hole in the wall. Or punch it. Once he punched the brick wall of St. Agnes and he ended up breaking something in his hand and the nuns fussed for days and Stick—

Whatever.

“The Murdock boy has temper tantrums,” he heard one of the nuns say once, to a newer one. “He’s sweet as anything most of the time, but sometimes when he gets frustrated he ends up screaming and throwing things. He’s too old for all that, but you know how these children can be. He’s been through a lot, you have to be patient with him.”

Matt doesn’t have temper tantrums, she was wrong. He's learned to control his rage, just like Stick wanted him to.

(Except maybe Stick left just a little bit too soon for Matt to be able to actually learn that.)

Matt’s calm.

Matt’s calm, he’s collected, he’s exactly what a weapon should be.

_What controls the body?_

_My mind._

So what does it mean that he can’t control his words?

Matt lets out a frustrated breath and bangs his fist against his head again, harder this time.

“Matthew! Come on,” Foggy says, because, right, Foggy’s here. “Come on, just take a deep breath and talk to me.”

“C-can’t, can't, can't  _talk_ ,” Matt manages to get out.

“Oh. Um, okay. That’s cool. You don’t have to, we can just…stay here.”

Matt pushes his knuckles into his skull. His head is throbbing almost pleasantly, like a heartbeat.

“Look, Matt, is it okay if I grab your hand?”

“Wh-why?”

“Because I really don’t feel like watching you make a _dent_ in your _head_.”

“Dra-dramatic,” Matt says as dryly as he can under the circumstances, but he shrugs and doesn’t fight it when Foggy takes his hand. His knuckles might be bruised. They feel bruised. His head is _definitely_ bruised, but he doesn’t mind. At least he was the one who did it this time.

Foggy carefully puts Matt’s hand on the bed, palm down, and then puts his own hand over it. It’s not quite holding hands, but it’s calming. Matt doesn’t want to kick anything anymore.

He just breathes, and reminds himself that his words will be back soon, and they won’t be broken then, hopefully.

Matt's rocking back and forth and Foggy's right here, so he really shouldn't be doing that, he doesn't do that in front of people because it's calming but he should be able to calm himself without looking ridiculous, but, well. It's  _Foggy._

Foggy leans on Matt, and the pressure is nice. “It’s okay,” Foggy says, and his heartbeat is steady.

When Foggy says it, it’s easy to believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, "Complexes" Matt is definitely on the autism spectrum, I can't deny it.
> 
> EDIT: Holy shit, you guys, this story has over 10,000 hits. What?! WOW. You're the best.


	11. The Angels Bowling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In short, there's a thunderstorm.

The crash of thunder is loud enough that Foggy actually wakes up.

He briefly mourns for his nice, uninterrupted sleep, because that was a good time. He’s gotten like five hours of sleep a night for the past week, and he still doesn’t know how Matt gets by. Foggy’s always heard that law school students get used to all nighters and stuff and are great at them and blah, blah, blah. That’s just not true for him. If he gets less than five hours of sleep he basically dies.

So Foggy was happy when his mock trial week was over and assumed he’d be able to get a good night’s sleep, but nope, apparently Mother Nature’s decided to conspire against Foggy and take away his Friday night. So, like, thanks Mother Nature.

Not cool.

There’s another crash of thunder and Foggy flinches, breath hitching. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. He’s never liked thunder. He used to be terrified of it when he was little. He’d end up crying for hours and hiding under his bed while his stressed out parents tried to tell him _lies_ about how thunder was the angels bowling or what the fuck ever.

(“I don’t even believe in God!” Foggy had wailed when he was five years old and his mother had tried to comfort him with that.

He still remembers how his parents had suddenly paused in their attempted comforting and his mother’s muttered, “Wait, when’d that happen?”)

He’d hated thunderstorms to the point where it ended up being high drama every time one happened. Thankfully most thunderstorms were short and to the point (the point being scaring the shit out of little Foggy and driving his entire family insane), but sometimes there were intense ones. Like this one.

Foggy can tell that this one’s going to last a while, a couple of hours at least, and he quietly hates the weather forecast for saying something about light showers overnight. Light showers his ass.

There’s another crash of thunder and Foggy breathes in sharply. He tries to push away the anxiety, but it’s kind of rough without his little brother.

Because when Foggy was six, he was able to calm the fuck down during thunderstorms thanks to Speedy, who everybody still called Maurice at that point in time, since he was just a baby and generally the Nelson family chooses nicknames when a kid’s around two or three. It’s a whole rite of passage.

Anyway. Speedy had been around for about eight months, and there was thunder, and before Foggy could start wailing like a banshee, Speedy beat him to it. The screaming from his nursery was so loud that Foggy had actually managed to forget that he was terrified and run over to his brother’s crib, terrified about something completely different. Speedy’s his only younger sibling, is the thing. (Well, his only biological one.)

When Speedy was born Foggy had immediately taken on the role of helicopter sibling, because Speedy was his parents’s fifth kid and at that point they were pretty chill about everything and Foggy had decided that someone had to be protective and freaked out about everything. Unfortunately, Speedy had turned out to not really need all that much protecting, considering that now he’s eighteen and backpacking in the Himalayas with his boyfriend or something and Foggy has given up on worrying about him because clearly Speedy’s unbreakable and probably should have been nicknamed Cement or something.

(“Foggy’s happiest when he’s helping someone,” his mother had said fondly to one of his aunts once, when Foggy was twelve and trying to feed his niece because he’d decided to take it upon himself to let his sister and her husband have some rest since they were starting to get to a point where they sort of looked like retro zombies and Elizabeth, who was usually so put together, had forgotten to wear a sock with her sneakers.

She hadn’t even worn socks of different colors. She’d just, like. Not worn one of the socks.

Foggy guessed that his mom was right, because he was sure he must have the patience of a saint and a true love for helping people to not throw the plate of baby food against the wall after the seventeenth time Kay stuck her tongue out at him as opposed to being interested in the food train.)

So, basically, it had turned out that Speedy as a baby was deathly afraid of thunderstorms too, and Foggy had been so distracted trying to calm him down, he mostly hadn’t noticed the thunder crashing around, even though he did still shriek every time there was a particularly loud clap of thunder.

And then as Speedy grew up, he and Foggy didn’t grow out of their fear of thunderstorms. But Foggy did manage to forget to be afraid when he was comforting Speedy, telling him stories about how the thunder was probably just Thor fighting Zeus because the Norse gods and the Greek gods didn’t get along. And then when Foggy’s gotten to college he’d mostly gone back to hiding under his bed during thunderstorms because he didn't have someone to distract him.

In any case, that’s why, when there’s a huge crash of thunder that Foggy’s pretty sure gives him a small heart attack and he hears a yelp from the other side of the room and turns to look at Matt in the dimness and sees that Matt’s covered his head with his covers protectively, Foggy actually feels relieved.

And then he feels guilty at the fact that he just totally thought _please let Matt be afraid of thunderstorms_.

At the next clap of thunder, Matt tenses and briefly does something that would be flailing if he wasn’t all curled up, and Foggy gets up and creeps over to Matt’s side of the room and sits down next to his bed. “Hey, Matt,” he whispers, wondering if Matt’ll hear him under the sound of the rain.

He does—seriously, Matt has crazy good hearing—and mumbles something.

Foggy doesn’t understand it, but he’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to. “Not a fan of thunderstorms, huh?”

“Loud,” Matt manages to grind out, or at least that’s what Foggy thinks he says, considering that his voice is muffled by the covers. Foggy feels kind of like he’s talking to the Blob, except made of thick blankets.

“Yeah, I don’t…” Foggy flinches as thunder rumbles in the distance and Matt hums loudly. “…like them either. Y’know, my little brother, he hates them too. I mean, I don’t know if he still does, but it’s like it was his only fear.”

“I’m not afraid,” blanket-Matt says, sounding affronted.

“Right, God forbid you be,” Foggy says lightly. “They’re still not fun.”

“I’ve been in thunderstorms…” Matt says. “I’ve…um…I’ve been before. I mean, like, I’ve been o-out in them. To get, get over it.”

“Seriously?” Foggy asks. “Dude, I hate to say it, but I don’t think it worked.”

“Hey!” Matt says, and then he lets out a strangled noise as some more thunder decides to make explosion sounds out there. “It’s, it’s just…loud.”

“Yeah. How awake are you right now?”

“Very,” Matt manages to grind out, rocking from side to side.

“Yeah, me too, which is, like, kind of too bad because I was planning to get some beauty sleep tonight.”

Matt huffs out what Foggy's pretty sure is a laugh.

“Hey, it takes effort to look this good. You can't see it, but I'm super hot.”

“Th-then what does it mean that I, that I sleep less than you and am apparently, by, by, by your own admission, handsomer?”

“Okay, one, _ouch_ , and two—fuck—” Foggy says as the thunder decides to helpfully remind them of its presence and distressed humming comes from under the covers for just a second. “Um, two, I don’t think handsomer’s a word.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it is.”

“No, it’s not, you’re so wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” blanket-Matt says pompously before giggling weakly.

Foggy laughs too. “It’s funny because it’s not true,” he says, teasing.

Matt giggles again, but then starts when thunder crashes again.

Lightning illuminates the room, and Foggy sees it in the distance through the open window, but not too far off, actually. “Jesus!” he yelps.

“Wh-what?” Matt asks.

“The lightning’s crazy.”

“Yeah?” Matt asks curiously. “What’s it l-look like?”

“Uh, it's really bright, like it illuminates everything, and I think it’s what they call forked lightning? I mean, like it slashes through the sky and it splits at the end. Tonight it's really long, too, and kind of jagged, like it split the dark open for a second.”

“That’s poetic,” Matt says.

“Thanks, I try.”

Matt gasps and flinches hard enough the next time that thunder decides to make the least appealing drum solo of all time that the entire lump of blanket that he’s become jerks violently.

“Come on,” Foggy says, pulling at Matt’s blanket. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Get down on the floor with me.”

“Why?”

“Come on, I used to do this with my little brother all the time.”

Matt manages to slither onto the floor, taking his blanket with him. Thankfully Matt bought the wrong size of blanket for his Twin XL bed, so it's actually made for a King-sized bed, and it’s easy to fit them both under it. Foggy looks over at Matt’s outline and grins as Matt presses against his shoulder.

“Nice to see you haven’t actually fused with the blanket.”

Matt laughs nervously.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Foggy asks tentatively.

Matt says, “Okay.”

Foggy slings an arm over Matt’s shoulders and holds on tightly as they sit on the floor with a blanket draped over them. “You know, my parents always used to try to tell me thunder was the angels bowling.”

“What? I’ve never heard that one.”

“Yeah, I never bought it. What’d your dad tell you?”

“There wasn’t any story or anything. He just said it was nothing to be afraid of, but he didn’t like it either. I knew. So we’d push the couch away from the wall and sit behind it and eat cereal and my dad would sing national anthems as loud as possible.”

Foggy laughs. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Matt laughs a little too, even as there’s another cascade of thunder outside and he leans harder against Foggy’s shoulder. “He knew a lot of national anthems. I don’t, I don’t really know why.”

“That’s cool, though,” Foggy murmurs as Matt slumps down enough to rest his head on Foggy’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Matt agrees, sounding as sleepy as Foggy feels. “It was.”

They both twitch at the next clap of thunder, but Foggy just laughs breathlessly and Matt follows suit.

Foggy’s not sure when he falls asleep, but it must be pretty soon after that. He wakes up with his neck aching and Matt’s hair in his mouth.

Foggy wrinkles his nose and manages to remove all of it from his mouth and guiltily smooth down Matt's hair.

Matt stirs, and Foggy goes still, hoping against hope that Matt won’t wake up and will actually get a normal human amount of sleep.

Matt doesn’t wake up.

Foggy takes his cue from Matt and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Handsomer is indeed a word.


	12. Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy gets with Marci. Matt gets jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. Guys. Guys. I'm so sorry about literally everything about my updating "schedule". For a while even I thought I'd abandoned my Daredevil fics, but nah. I just started writing tonight and I realized that I still have these stories in me. I'm going to try really, really, really hard to update more than once a month, and at least once a month. 
> 
> I hope I can kind of make up for my total lack of just...idk, my total lack, just a little, with this chapter, which is long and has an almost excessive amount of feels, because it's almost three in the morning and I've been writing this nonstop since like ten. And just, yeah, I'm getting used to writing for this fandom again, and for this story again. It's been a while.

Matt knows Foggy’s sleeping with Marci Stahl. To be more exact, Matt knows that Foggy is having vigorous and exciting sex with Marci Stahl, though he very much wishes that that was not information in his possession.

Foggy hasn’t told him about it, of course, because Marci and Foggy clearly aren’t a couple and Foggy is a gentleman who does not kiss and tell, mostly, but. Matt still knows. For one, he can smell sex. Two, Marci herself has a very specific smell because she wears too much of a gross vanilla perfume that clashes violently with her rose-scented deodorant, so Matt can smell her on Foggy, and on Foggy’s _bed._ Three, Matt’s heard them.

Obviously, that’s only because of his enhanced hearing, not because Foggy’s had sex with with Marci while Matt was in the room “sleeping” or something, thank _God_ , and that’s not a case of Matt taking the Lord’s name in vain, he has literally thanked God for that, because he’s heard horror stories about less thoughtful roommates, not that he thinks Foggy would ever notbe thoughtful, but he digresses—Foggy’s never had sex with Marci while Matt was in the room, but even so, he has had sex with her while Matt was less than a mile away and honed in on their room.

It was rough, both physically and on Matt’s psyche.

Matt doesn’t bring it up, because he’s pretty sure Foggy thinks Matt doesn’t know about his thing with Marci at all (which, just, _come on_ , Foggy’s the one who says Matt has game, why shouldn’t he know?), and there’s no way to bring it up without it being unbearably awkward, not to mention confusing.

“Foggy, I can smell how much sex you’re having, not just on you but on your bed, and also hear it way too often, and I’d like to formally request that you fuck at Marci’s place, please,” would not be a good friendship move. Even Matt knows that.

He does feel bad that he knows this personal detail about Foggy, but since he can’t think of how _not_ to know it, he just swallows down the guilt and stays silent. Matt’s great at staying silent.

Anyway, Foggy’s sleeping with Marci Stahl, and other than having to deal with some bearable awkwardness, Matt doesn’t mind. Why should he? Foggy’s getting some, and as his best friend, Matt supports that.

That’s why it’s weird that Matt sort-of minds when Foggy practically skips into their room one day and crows, “Marci and I are going on a _date!_ ”

Matt, who’s been writing a paper, lets his fingers go still on the keyboard. “Marci Stahl?” he asks.

“Yep! Saturday at six, baby!”

Matt swallows his response of _you said you’d study for Torts with me Saturday evening,_ and ends up not saying anything, because this is unexpected. Going on a date with Marci is different from sleeping with Marci, and Matt’s genuinely confused, because Foggy and Marci spend a lot of their time bitching at each other, and Matt might not go on many dates, but he knows you’re supposed to like the person you’re going on a date with. So Matt helpfully points out, “You guys hate each other.”

Foggy pauses, breath stuttering like he’s confused, and now Matt’s even more confused. “Marci and I don’t hate each other, Matty,” Foggy says.

“You’re always fighting,” Matt responds, making sure to not tack on _or fucking_ at the end of that sentence.

“Well, it’s not really…it’s not really _fighting_. It’s more like bantering. I mean, slightly mean-spirited bantering, but we have fun. No one’s feelings get hurt. We like each other.”

“Oh,” Matt says. “That’s great.”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get her on an actual date for _ever_!”

Matt nods. “Saturday at six,” he repeats.

“You okay?” Foggy asks. “Hey, do you not like Marci?”

Matt’s glad that he’s wearing his glasses so Foggy presumably can’t see his eye roll.

_Of course I don’t like Marci, she’s mean and she’s got an annoying voice._

Matt doesn’t say that, because he knows that sometimes you just have to lie, and also Foggy goes on dates all the time, and actual relationships have never happened. “No, yeah, I like her,” Matt says, and then he grins. “I’m happy for you, man.”

He is, technically. Matt knows that Foggy gets lonely sometimes, without a Romantic Interest, and Matt’s always supported him getting a Romantic Interest, though he’s never really considered what might happen when he does. Foggy’ll be happier, he tells himself. Unless the person is awful, like Marci Stahl. But Matt figures that Marci’s not going to last past a date, and she and Foggy’ll go back to having what seems to be great casual sex, or they’ll stop, and Marci will go back to not being much of a feature in Matt’s life. Or, rather, Foggy’s life.

Anyway, Matt thinks he would be happier for Foggy if the date wasn’t interfering with their studying, or if Foggy had at least apologized for making other plans.

As it is, Matt thinks he forgot they made plans in the first place.

At that moment, he just thinks, _at least Marci’s not going to be Foggy’s girlfriend, so she won’t be intruding after this,_ with a bitterness he doesn’t understand.

Matt is wrong.

Foggy comes back from his date with Marci smelling like unfamiliar shampoo and blueberry pancakes, and he says, “Man, she’s something.”

More specifically, Marci is: smart, funny, hot, scratch-that- _crazy-_ hot, rich _(I’m just saying)_ , interesting, and hot again.

Foggy’s steady but excited heartbeat tells Matt that Marci isn’t actually as awful a human being as Matt inexplicably wants her to be, and he says what he’s supposed to say. “Awesome. So, are you going steady or what?”

Foggy laughs like he’s trying to choke it down, and Matt frowns. “What?”

“Buddy, no one’s said ‘going steady’ since the sixties.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Foggy goes quiet for a moment, and then says, soft and serious, “I hope we’ll end up going steady, though. I like her.”

Matt feels something in himself brighten, and he grins, because Foggy sounds happy, and even if it’s Marci who’s made him happy, that’s good. Matt knows Foggy’s been insecure about people liking him romantically, and now he doesn’t have to be, because there’s definitely going to be more than a failed first date here. Matt’s able to push away the strange nerves that snake up his chest when he thinks of Foggy having someone better than Matt to spend all his time around, and instead he lets himself be dragged on a walk with an overly-energetic Foggy, and thinks that there’s no reason to feel weird about this.

Then Foggy and Marci begin going steady, and Matt feels weird about it. The thing is, Foggy’s away a bunch, going out with Marci and spending time at her apartment, and Matt hates himself for missing him, because he’s not supposed to miss people. Yes, he can care about Foggy, his ally, his friend, but he shouldn’t miss him like this, and he definitely shouldn’t want to throw something when Foggy decides to do something with Marci and not Matt. But Matt just doesn’t like change, okay? He never has. And now that Foggy has a girlfriend, things have changed, and it’s annoying that Matt even has to try to adjust.

But his stomach starts twisting itself into knots about how Marci is special in ways Matt can never be, and how even after Foggy and Marci break up (which they will, because Matt’s a hundred percent sure that a relationship can’t actually be built on sex, bitchiness, competition, and law), Foggy’s going to find some other girl or guy to be with romantically, and someday he’ll realize that there’s someone who’s so great that Matt isn’t necessary, because a best friend is just a placeholder until you find a romantic interest, or at least Matt is, and he’ll leave.

This shouldn’t bother Matt, because he knows that Foggy’s going to leave at some point. Matt’s not the kind of person people stick around long-term.

Matt doesn’t ever think that eventually he’ll find someone to marry and spend the rest of his life with, because that’s a terrible idea. Falling in love leads to heartbreak, and marriage leads to divorce. Matt learned that hearing his dad cry over the mother Matt never knew.

Besides, Matt can only imagine one person being around for the rest of his life, and that’s Foggy. For a second, he considers falling in love with Foggy, but he doesn’t think that’s ever going to happen. Matt doesn’t know what falling in love is like, but he’s sure it’s not Foggy’s comfortable companionship, the way he feels safe around him, the fun he has around him, the trust he has for him. Not really like how it was with his dad, but something closer to that than being in love.

Falling in love has more sparks and infatuation and so on, like in books. Like sex, but boring, Matt guesses. He doesn’t understand the appeal of being in love, of being wrapped up in a person and passionate in a way that’s beyond sex, and it frustrates him, because romantic love is supposed to be amazing, even just romantic feelings are supposed to be amazing, but Matt would be surprised if he’s ever felt a romantic feeling before.

There are so many reasons Matt’s going to end up alone, and that’s one: he’s incapable of love. Of any kind, but especially the romantic kind. The special kind that lets people spend the rest of their lives together.

Matt’s fine with being alone, though. He is. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine.

Besides, it’s good to remember that Foggy’s not going to stick around. It’s only been a few months, anyway. It’s incredibly stupid that Matt’s let himself get this attached, even if he told himself it was okay. He was being weak, letting himself love somebody.

No, no, no, not love, like.

Letting himself like somebody.

Matt goes to the gym more. He’s already been going a lot, but he still hasn’t been training enough. He loves training, loves losing himself in different techniques, in the strain on his muscles, in the way that fighting makes everything go clear. He can forget about what’s bothering him, about people, about the ugly feelings he doesn’t have, because if he had them, he wouldn’t understand them anyway.

He still spends time with Foggy, of course. He can’t make himself not. There’s still something ugly inside of him that surges forward when Foggy goes to see Marci, or when he talks about her, except for when he’s complaining. Matt doesn’t mind hearing Foggy complain about Marci, and he’s not sure why, when everything else that has to do with her makes these snakes rise up in his chest and choke him with the fact that _he likes her better than he likes you._

But Matt feels tired and frustrated and sick and he knows he’s not as fun to be around, because he can hear Foggy’s concern in everything he says to Matt lately and the way he doesn’t believe Matt when he says he’s fine.

Matt doesn’t know what he is, right up until Foggy and Marci have been dating for maybe a month, and Foggy walks into their room purposefully while Matt’s pretending to read what may or may not be _Bleak House_ and really just idly running his fingers over a page, not exactly spaced out because that would mean he wasn’t aware of what was going on around him, and Matt’s always aware. Foggy hasn’t been in their room in two days, because he’s been with Marci. Matt knows this because Foggy called him to tell him that was where he’d be, because Foggy’s nice like that, he knows Matt worries, and Foggy still cares enough to remember that.

Foggy stands in front of Matt’s bed, solid and _there_ and for a wild moment Matt thinks it’s unfair, that Foggy can be there and Matt can want to tell him about the things he likes and dislikes about _Bleak House_ because he knows Foggy’ll listen even if he groans about it, when Foggy’s just going to leave.

Matt ignores him and the way he smells like Marci, who should really buy a perfume that isn’t nauseating.

Foggy sighs heavily and says, firmly, with an annoying amount of earnest concern in his voice, “Matt, look, you’ve been acting really weird. Like, you’ve been down. Seriously, and I’m asking you for real, and I’d be thrilled if you answered me for real, are you okay?”

Matt doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he can’t say anything, because he doesn’t _know,_ he doesn’t understand what’s happening inside of him, and he hates caring, and he hates how things have become unpredictable and different, and all his words are stuck inside of him, so he just lets out a frustrated yell and throws the book across the room.

He makes sure to miss Foggy, because if he hurt him he’d never forgive himself, but other than that, it’s an impulsive thing.

“Matt!” Foggy says loudly. “What the hell?”

Matt lets himself fall back against his bed and slams his palms against his forehead.

“Hey!” Foggy says, now kneeling next to Matt’s bed. “Come on, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“N-n-n…” Matt starts, and then he lets out a groan of frustration and finally just—speaks, the words tripping out of him without his knowledge or consent. “I’m fine, fine, _fine,_ I’m happy, I’m hap-happy for you and th-that you’re happy because I’m-I’m-I’m not _selfish_ and I…I hope you fucking _marry_ Marci, okay? Then you can just, just, just go away and stop being worried at me, and, and I’ll be alone and it’ll, I’ll be, I’ll be happier because I won’t have to, have to care about when you’re going away, and, and, and I’ll have more time to train, and I’ll pr-probably do better in, in school too, without th-the distraction, so I’m _fine_ , go away!”

He covers his burning face, squeezing his eyes shut to keep the tears of frustration that are building up in, and curls up on his side, facing away from Foggy.

Foggy’s breath is shaky and his heart is quick—maybe Matt scared him, or surprised him, Matt hopes he just surprised him—and he doesn’t go away, instead he circles over to the other side of Matt’s bed.

“Hey,” Foggy says in a voice so absurdly gentle it makes Matt’s hands find their way to his hair and _pull_. “This is because of Marci?”

Matt doesn’t say anything, just breathes as evenly as he can, humiliated by this sudden burst of inexplicable emotion.

“Okay, I’m gonna just assume it is, because, duh. Matt, one, I’m not gonna marry Marci, because we broke up.”

Matt’s too miserable to really feel any relief at that, especially since: “Not true. You smell like her perfume.”

Foggy breathes in a sharp, surprised little breath, and then says, “Uh, it was an…amicable break-up.”

“Ew,” Matt mutters, totally unable to stop himself, and Foggy chokes on a laugh.

“We’re better off just…friends. You were right, we kinda hate each other. Y’know, in a nice way, but—not the point. Matt, I think I might’ve been less emotionally involved in this relationship than you.”

Matt lets out a wet laugh. “I wasn’t.”

“…Sure. So you threw a tantrum for nothing?”

“I didn’t throw a tantrum,” Matt says.

“Right, sorry, you had an uncalculated burst of anger for nothing?”

“Uncalculated isn’t a word. And, and yeah.”

“Look, I get it, Marci was the first girlfriend I had during our friendship, and it freaked you out ‘cause you thought I was forgetting you.”

“I didn’t,” Matt says, voice wobbling precariously.

“You sure? Matty, it’s okay. Everyone gets jealous.”

“I wasn’t _jealous_ ,” Matt snaps. “That, that would be…be totally ir-irrational.”

“Everyone’s irrational sometimes.”

“Not me.”

“…I’m not gonna respond to that, because I feel like it’ll get us nowhere. You know, my oldest sister, Elizabeth, got married a few years back. We’re pretty close, and I was like eighteen, and I felt like she was gonna forget about me, ‘cause she was moving out and starting a new family, and she had this great new guy she was in love with. And I was a dick about it, totally jealous, way more obvious than you were. And Elizabeth told me that just because there was another person in her life, it didn’t mean I didn’t matter anymore, because we had a relationship that couldn’t be replaced by another person.”

Matt breathes quietly, letting Foggy’s words put themselves together in the right way in his head.

“Do you get what I’m saying?” Foggy asks. “Because, just to clarify, that was an analogy for this situation.”

Matt snorts. “No kidding.”

“You’re not replaceable, Matty,” Foggy says. “You’re really important to me, no matter what. And way more important than a person I’m casually dating could be, even if we’re, and here I’m using your words, old man, going steady. You’re my best friend. That’s not really a relationship that…just _ends._ ”

Matt considers Foggy’s words, and says, “You’re important to me too.”

“I’d kinda guessed that by now, buddy.”

“I’m sorry I was ridiculous.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You had feelings, ooh, gasp, shock. Seriously, it’s fine. And by the way, I’m not just gonna bail on you or whatever you think. That’s not how I roll.”

Matt believes that last part, but he doesn’t think Foggy understands exactly how hard it is to _not_ leave Matt yet. He does know that it’s not going to happen as soon as he thought, or as…easily, he guesses.

Matt knows that that’ll make it hurt more when Foggy does leave, but Matt’s taken all sorts of pain before. He thinks he’d rather have the hurt later if he can have his best friend now. He knows that’s stupid and excessively emotional, but he can’t ignore how much easier it is to breathe when he knows Foggy’s there.

He can’t ignore it, and he thinks he’s going to stop trying to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK, MOTHERFUCKERS. I LOVE YOU ALL.


	13. Dazed and Concussed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy is rudely reminded of the fact that firemen exist for a reason, and Matt is high-strung and snarky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy, told you I'd be updating at least once a month! Anyway, please note that I'm super not a doctor, but I don't think any of the medical stuff here is totally beyond the realm of belief. If it is, tell me. I hope this chapter's okay, basically.

When Foggy wakes up—for real, not the confused floating in and out of consciousness he’s pretty sure he’s been doing for the past…recently—he’s greeted by a nurse with salt-and-pepper hair and a tired smile. “You finally with us, Mr. Nelson?”

“Ugh,” is Foggy’s contribution to the conversation.

“There’s that law school eloquence,” the nurse says, smirking.

“Thanks,” Foggy says drily, and then he waits a beat before finally realizing: “aw, man, I’m in the hospital.”

To be fair, he probably should have guessed that not only from the presence of a sleep-deprived woman in scrubs, but from the flimsy curtains separating him from the other poor souls in this place and the weird shit he’s hooked up to. Not to mention how bad his head hurts, _Jesus._

“You hit your head good,” the nurse helpfully reminds him. “You’re lucky we’re having an unrealistically slow day, I figured there wouldn’t be anyone here when you came back to your senses. We had to send your friend back to the waiting room, he was getting in the way.”

Foggy frowns before remembering: Matt.

_Wait._

Matt hadn’t been with him when he knocked himself out, at least, not as far as Foggy’s extremely muddled mind can remember. (A tree, a flash of pain across his forearm, a yell, and…splat.) He’s one of Foggy’s emergency contacts, sure, but Foggy’s still not sure if he heard right, because Matt and hospitals don’t mix, and that’s a fact. “Wait, Matt’s here?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the kid who’s been freaking out in the waiting room for the past hour and a half.”

Foggy would be floored if he weren’t lying down. “Seriously? _Matt?_ High-strung blind guy, dark hair, sunglasses?”

“ _Yes,_ that’s him. Is it really that hard to believe your emergency contact, who clearly… _cares_ about you is here bugging us?”

“Yeah, actually. Don’t get my wrong, my _best friend_ loves me, but he hates hospitals. Once, he had a fever of 102 and he still refused to go.”

“Huh. That probably explains why the kid’s a nervous wreck when you’re not exactly dying here, y’know.”

Foggy can’t help but smile, because he’s pretty sure it’s appropriate to feel really touched that Matt braved a hospital for, presumably, him.

“Good to know,” Foggy says. “So when can I go?”

“We’ll keep you here until the doctor can come look at you, and then we’ll see. I don’t expect you to be here much longer.” The nurse’s pager beeps, and she sighs heavily. “That’s my cue to go. I’ll tell your buddy he can come in, but you better contain him. He’s a little annoyed at you.”

“Huh?”

“Yep. Wants you to know there are firefighters for a reason.”

_“Huh?”_

“C’mon, think about it for a second. What were you doing when you hit your head? You remember anything? ‘Cause if you don’t, I might have to get the doctor in here sooner.”

Foggy strains his mind, and finally connects the fragmented memories surrounding his fall, which he hasn’t really been thinking about, too busy dealing with his pounding headache and having a conversation and the constant bundle of surprises that is his best friend.

He groans.

The nurse cackles as she leaves.

Foggy’s glad that he could at least amuse her.

When Matt bangs his way into Foggy’s hospital room, he’s pretty clearly agitated. Foggy can tell from the painfully clenched jaw and the way he doesn’t even smile at the lady who led him down to Foggy’s bed when he tells her “thank you”. Foggy bangs on the metal chair next to his bed, and Matt sits. He’s clearly been running his hands through his hair—it’s a mess—and he’s holding his cane so tightly that his knuckles have gone paper white. Matt’s still as a statue, as if Foggy doesn’t know he wants to move, to rock back and forth or tap his foot or his fingers.

Foggy wonders, not for the first time, who exactly Matt’s trying to fool.

 _“Imagine,”_ Matt says with great drama, almost lawyerly in its scope, “my surprise when I get a call saying you’re concussed because you were saving a _cat_ from a _tree._ ”

“When you put it like that it sounds pretty stupid,” Foggy points out.

“It was pretty stupid! You could’ve died!”

“Matt, it wasn’t a very tall tree. I feel fine.”

“You know what happens to people with head injuries who feel fine? They die in their sleep. You could have broken your skull! And even closed head injuries, do you know what those can do to you? Memory problems, aphasia, trouble with mood regulation…”

Foggy, who’s now thoroughly freaked out and really hoping that none of that’s in his future and that this “feeling fine” business will continue, interrupts Matt before he really gets going. Matt’s started flexing his hands, rubbing his fingers together and over his knuckles. “Woah! I feel okay.”

Matt tilts his head, and the motion somehow manages to come off as judgmental. Foggy says, “Seriously! I mean, I’ve got a hell of a headache, but…”

“Hopefully that won’t last too long,” Matt mutters. Foggy’s pretty sure Matt thinks he’s talking under his breath, but he and his irregular voice modulation end up stage whispering the words instead, which makes it sound like he’s having a sidebar with an imaginary judge, and maybe Foggy really is loopy. Mostly he’s just tired.

“Huh?”

“Huh?” Matt parrots, and then he sighs and says, grudgingly, “As far as anyone could tell while you were asleep, the concussion _isn’t_ that bad. You weren’t even actually unconscious for a full minute, you’ve just been sleeping, and apparently you were pretty coherent when the paramedics got you to talk.”

“The nurse didn’t seem too worried.”

“Nurses never seem too worried. They have to do some tests now that you’re awake for more than a few minutes, but it’ll probably just be the old ‘what year is it’ and ‘who’s President’ bit.”

“I know the answers to those,” Foggy says, and he puts on his very best joking voice when he says, “1964 and JFK.”

Matt finally cracks a smile. “In 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson was President.”

Foggy frowns. “Seriously?”

“He’s right,” someone says as they walk up to Foggy’s bed.

Foggy starts and then blinks up at the dark-skinned older guy who just spoke, as the guy continues in some kind of African (Ghanaian?) accent: “LBJ started in 1963, after Kennedy was assassinated.”

“Told you,” Matt says, even though he’s not smiling anymore. He just seems wary, now.

“When’d you get here?” Foggy asks the doctor, trying to ignore the renewed throbbing in his head, and then, “Matt, did you notice him come in?”

Matt nods.

“Mr. Nelson, I’m Dr. Owusu. I’m just going to poke around for a bit, but you should be out of here in no time.”

Dr. Owusu shines a light in Foggy’s eyes, which makes him hiss, and asks, “Do you remember what happened?”

“Uh, sort of. Not really well? Just that there was a cat, a tree, and I fell.”

Dr. Owusu presses his lips together in a way that makes it obvious that he’s trying to contain a laugh. “Alright, Superman, some amnesia around the event is normal. Headache?”

“Ugh, yeah, but not, like, blinding or anything.”

Matt snorts, and Foggy groans when he realizes what he just said. “Shit, sorry, Matty.”

“No, it’s fine, someone has to be the eyes of the operation, since you’re clearly not the brains.”

“Matt!” Foggy gasps, genuinely surprised, while Dr. Owusu chuckles gently.

“Sorry!” Matt blurts out, looking guilty and a little scared, which makes Foggy kind of sad, and also determined to clarify his reaction.

“No, no, you didn’t let me finish. Matt, that was a _sick burn._ ”

Matt, who’s hunched in on himself, straightens out a little and smiles tentatively. “I try?”

Dr. Owusu interrupts to ask, “By the way, just for kicks, what _is_ the year, and who _is_ the President?”

Foggy rattles off the answers without thinking, and Dr. Owusu gives him a pleased smile and says, “Mr. Nelson, you have a very strong skull. As a lawyer, it will serve you well.”

Foggy grins. “Thanks, I guess. So, can I leave?”

“Considering what we gleaned from your time awake before and from now, yes. You can check out at the front desk. Get yourself some Tylenol for the headache, take it easy for a few days, make sure to go to the clinic in about a week to get yourself checked out, and leave the cat-saving to the firemen, Superman.”

Foggy chuckles and rolls his eyes. “Message received, doctor. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Dr. Owusu says with another warm smile. “Goodbye Mr. Nelson, and goodbye, Matt. Take care of your friend here.”

Matt nods seriously. “Of course.”

Once Dr. Owusu is out of the room, Foggy manages to get himself looking presentable, and they’re out of the hospital in almost no time at all. Foggy’s still tired, but not so tired that he doesn’t notice some of the tension going out of Matt’s shoulders.

“Thanks, by the way,” Foggy says. “I mean, I know you hate hospitals. So, thanks.”

Matt responds with, “Stop climbing trees.”

And then, for some reason—maybe they’re drunk on the cool November air, now that they’re out of the hospital with its antiseptic smell and claustrophobia—they start laughing, and don’t stop until they’re out of breath, stumbling their way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the Thanksgiving portion of this adventure should be coming up next, which means that the rest of the Nelson clan is gonna be making their way into the story.


	14. Fast Forward: What's Up?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this special, sort of unfinished, sort of final chapter (see author's notes), Foggy finds out about Matt's abilities, and hopefully the audience gets at least a mild sense of closure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the deal.
> 
> This story will probably never be 'finished' as such. To be fair, I billed it as 'vaguely connected vignettes', and that's really what it's going to become. If I ever get the write any more for this, I will make a series for this 'verse and add separate, standalone (if you've read this fic) stories to it. 
> 
> Anyway, basically, this last chapter is one that I've really wanted to post but never been able to because it jumps forward in time, is pretty much two half-chapters, and mentions characters that haven't been introduced. 
> 
> But.
> 
> It is the scene where Foggy finds out about Matt's abilities. 
> 
> And I thought that I'd post it, because I do want to give you guys some sort of closure, even if I never come back to this universe at all.
> 
> BUT. 
> 
> Maybe, maybe, like I've said, I'll post some other things as separate stories that are genuinely pretty disconnected from each other but are in this 'verse, like a couple of stories that are far in the future when Matt's Daredevil, and one that I wanted to where Matt and the Nelsons go to the Grand Canyon, and basically a few one shots based on various plot points that came up in the original kink meme thread for the Happy Matt AU that are also in the universe, and just ideas that I had.
> 
> I cannot stress enough that this would become a series of disconnected and probably non-linear standalones (and I'll say which 'prompt' from the thread I'm using, or where it takes place in time) and this chaptered fic will be over and done with.
> 
> Anyway. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your support, and I'm sorry I dropped the ball.
> 
> Also, as a warning, this chapter does have dissociation and a brief mention of suicide, though no one's suicidal. It's a slightly heavier one, but a big hurt/comfort one too, so.

The end of the semester is brutal. 

Matt expected nothing less.

Actually, he expected _worse,_ but he will admit, at least to himself, that he always expects worse. 

The reality is that most of what he can remember of the end of the semester are blurs of sound and smell and utterly excruciating touch and a lot of prayers. His rib injury may have acted up. He was out of the dorm for most of it, in the library or in class. He remembers the taste of guacamole and Foggy saying, _dude, you’re freaking me out,_ and feeling very bad about that until he—doesn’t remember. 

He definitely, at some point, did a mock trial. He knows, because he studied a lot before checking out, that it was about capital punishment, and he was against it. He vaguely remembers a few Clarence Darrow quotes, but other than that he could’ve been arguing for heifer rights for all he knew. 

The quack at St. Agnes said something about _traumatic amnesia_ at some point, Matt thinks, and _dissociation._ Matt called it a relief.

Even now, completely blurring through midterms is quite honestly a boon more than anything, until he thinks about it for a second and feels more than a little unnerved. Matt hasn’t been out of it like that in years, with the only moments of clarity he can dredge up basically sound bytes. And also a couple that came about when he bit himself or banged his head against the wall. 

He’s only checked out like that a few times in his life, and when he was a kid, at that, and he generally gets the memories back later. He comforts himself with the knowledge that he’s better at it now, because the first time this happened, after his father died, he was out of it for something like a month, and he was pretty much catatonic when his senses weren’t roaring through his entire body and making the world so unbearable that the only thing he could do was scream. This time, he was able to get through exams and essays and an entire mock trial. He remembers studying for all of these things, and then—

The rest wasn’t exactly silence so much as a giant shrug. 

Matt’s back now, though, his mind deciding to work overtime, not letting him sleep or think about anything other than all the important things he might’ve missed, all the important things he might not have done. What if he didn’t lock the window when he was checked out? What if he went out walking with Foggy and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around him and something awful happened that he could’ve stopped? What if he said things he shouldn’t have? He doesn’t think he talks very much at all when he’s like that, but he could’ve spilled secrets. 

Matt bites down on his wrist so hard he draws blood, taking some comfort from the fact that it’s not bringing him back to earth, which means he was already there, it just hurts a lot. He’s right here, he’s here. 

He doesn’t know if being able to move through life without being there is a sign of strength or weakness. He doesn’t have to wonder what Stick would say. Weakness, of course. Most things were weakness, with him. He didn’t want Matt to be controlled by anger, but he always preferred aggression to passivity. 

Matt remembers that he tried to check out when he was with Stick sometimes, practically tried to _induce_ it, except the pain always brought him back over and over and over again until he stopped. It wasn’t a coping mechanism that worked anymore. He always had to be aware around Stick, or there would be trouble, so those particular incidents, already rare, just stopped happening. 

When he lost Stick it was nothing like when he lost his dad, except for the screaming.

Things still got blurred and confused, but not in the same way, and also probably in part because he gave himself a concussion.

Twice.

[ **Foggy asks Matt to come over to his place for Thanksgiving break. Reluctantly, Matt accepts.**

**He meets Foggy’s family, and really likes them. This disturbs him.**

**Finally, things come to a head on Thanksgiving when Matt has some vanilla ice cream and is reminded of Stick.**

**He one hundred percent freaks out.]**

"Foggy," Matt chokes out. "Foggy, I can't...I can't...I can't care, not like this, it's not—I can't get weak again and—”

_And I can't lose this. If I lose this, if you leave, it'll destroy me and I can't afford that._

"Weak?" Foggy asks, sounding frustrated. "I don't get it, Matt."

"I have to be alone because if I get complacent it hurts and it puts everyone in danger, I'm dangerous."

"Matt, what are you talking about?"

So Matt decides to finally, finally let Foggy know.

Know what he is, who he is, really, a liar and a freak, show him he shouldn't care. "The accident," Matt says, hushed. "I got this stuff spilled in my eyes, this radioactive shit and I can't see, I can't see anything but I can...everything else is so...it's more, it's..."

"What?"

Matt gasps, desperately trying to get some oxygen into his lungs. "I hear and I...smell and I feel and taste...the other four senses, Foggy, they're different. The ice cream—it's...vanilla extract and the chemicals and...and I can hear, I can hear your heartbeat, I can feel heat signatures and sense pockets of air...I know that you wanna say something because..." Matt sobs. "I can hear how your breathing pattern changes just a little."

"Oh my God."

"It all makes this...this tactile impressionistic painting, this world on fire..."

"You can...see? Fire?"

"No. No, it's all dark, since I was nine, there's nothing, but there's...everything else is so loud and so...much, and it just...feels, there's this...I don't know, but...I...he...he taught me how to fight, Foggy, got me ready for the war."

"Who, Matty? What war?"

Matt lets out a painful sob. "I don't know. There's just—there's a war all around us and I have this gift and—Stick, he taught me—”

"Stick?"

"He was—like me—and I, Foggy, I was in so much pain, I was—everything was so loud, the bones in people's bodies were screaming and I felt was like it was, was, was all tearing my skin off and he helped, he helped me control it and learn how to fight and he said, Foggy, he said it wasn't worth it to have pleasure and happiness isn't for a weapon—”

"A weapon? What the fuck, Matt? You're a person, you get that, right?"

Foggy's heartbeat is erratic and his voice is worried and Matt's frustrated, because it’s Foggy that’s not getting it.

"I can disarm someone in under a minute, Foggy. I can get out of police grade handcuffs and zip-ties in under forty seconds. I can do a backflip off of a rooftop. I can incapacitate someone with my hands bound. I know three ways to kill myself from a seated position."

"Holy shit, Matt!" Foggy says, sounding horrified, and Matt feels a surge of bitter victory. He was right. A person like Foggy, a person who's good, he's not going to be able to deal with Matt, but it's not so bad, Matt has had enough time with him to keep some good memories. Memories can be enough, please let them be enough.

So if Matt leaves first—

He thought it would hurt less, but he can feel tears burning down his face. "I'm sorry," he says, because five seconds ago he was trying to push Foggy away but now there's this ice cold terror that he's going to walk away just like Stick.

Matt grabs Foggy's shoulder and says, "I'm sorry, I just...I'm not supposed to be this way, this soft person who lets everything in, it...you make me so happy, Foggy, and your family—I’ve been so happy—”

"But that's good, buddy. That's good."

"No!" Matt says. "You don't get it, people like me, it's bad, I'm bad, I'm a weapon and those don’t—” Matt cuts himself off, chest heaving, breaths rasping in his throat, so many hearts pounding in his throat.

"You're a person,” Foggy says helplessly.

"I'm dangerous," Matt whispers. "A weapon and I'm not supposed to have nice things or feel nice things, people like me—we don’t—we don’t—”

He's gasping, he can't breathe, his lungs are collapsing.

(That's called a panic attack, Matt.)

"Matt, it's fine, you're gonna be fine. This is...a lot, but it's gonna be okay." 

"Please don't cry," Matt begs, because he can smell salt and Foggy's voice is choked with emotion and Matt didn't mean to do this.

"It's okay, Matty," Foggy says. "I'm not leaving, my family's not leaving, not because you think you don't deserve us."

"If I get soft—weak—”

"It's not weak to be happy. You can deal with this stuff even when you're happy, you’re not making any sense.”

Matt lets out a high pitched noise of distress. He wants this so much, this isn't how he's supposed to be, but he loves—

"Your mom's saying she's worried about us," Matt blurts out, trying to show Foggy how he is, trying make him understand (something, something). "And your dad's saying we're probably fine but his heartbeat—he's lying."

"You can tell when someone's lying?" Foggy asks, sounding alarmed.

Matt lets out a wild laugh. "I can do lots of th-things."

"Okay," Foggy mutters, heart pounding. "Okay. Matt, it's gonna be fine," he says, pulling Matt into his arms. Matt doesn't hug back, just shakes and cries and tries to breathe, he’s not supposed to cry, why can’t he stop?

"I'm not usually like this," Matt promises as Foggy whispers reassurances into his hair. "Emotional, I'm not—not s-supposed to be this way."

"Breathe with me, Matty. Like before. Breathe with me."

Obediently, Matt copies the way Foggy's lungs are expanding, and he finally wraps his arms around Foggy and buries his face in his shoulder. "I'm not supposed to be like this," Matt says. "I don't want to be this way."

"Okay," Foggy says. "Okay, we're gonna talk about this and it'll be fine. Promise."

Matt laughs, wet and disbelieving against Foggy's shoulder.

"Really," Foggy whispers, and his heart was already beating too quickly, so Matt can't tell if he's lying or not. "Really."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully that was satisfying. Again, sorry about the mess, but...surprise?
> 
> (pls be nice and do not spam me w disappointment)

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't respond to most of the comments on the last chapter just because there were so many and I got slightly overwhelmed after I let them pile up (my bad), but I just want to say that I love you all and I am very thankful for your comments and have read them all!


End file.
